Harry the Hufflepuff 3 - Harry's Year off
by BajaB
Summary: Sequel - Read the others first, of course. Lazy!harry is back for another year of doing nothing. This will not be a long story. Sorry for the wait.
1. Chapter 1 - Summer Slacking

_Well Lazy!Harry is back, but not making any effort, and so don't expect this to go much more than one chapter..._

**Disclaimer: The Harry Potter universe and all related materials are the property of J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury and Warner Brothers. I am in no way affiliated with JKR, Bloomsbury or Warner Brothers, and use their materials without their permission or knowledge.**

Harry Potter was a highly unusual boy in a few significant ways.

The most obvious thing was that he wanted to be lazy- not just that he was lazy, which in itself isn't really that unusual for a teenage boy, but Harry actively wanted to be lazy, and he put an almost ridiculous amount of effort into it.

He was too lazy to go as far as saying that he _hated_ do anything twice (and was not very happy about doing most things once in the first place), but he definitely did not enjoy doing the same things day in and day out, unless it was sleeping or slacking off. This often meant he spent an extraordinary amount of time and effort finding ways to not do something, and then even more effort figuring out how to avoid ever doing it again.

His motivation to excel at being lazy was due to years of been told time and again that he was a lazy, good-for-nothing lay-about by his closest family, his Aunty and Uncle who were too dim to realise the sort of activity (or lack of activity), they were encouraging.

This criticism happened despite any effort he made, so Harry rather sensibly decided that he would strive to be what he was called, and learned to thoroughly enjoy doing the very nothing the adults in his life constantly accused him of.

It was pretty much a win-win decision, as far as he could see.

Discovering, at the tender age of eleven, that he happened to be a wizard was another unusual thing about Harry, because while there are a lot of lazy teenagers, not many of them are wizards.

As a wizard, doing nothing should have been a lot easier. Wave a wand and make anything he wanted appear. Wave it again to remove anything he didn't want any more – a perfect fit for him. So he started going to a special boarding school for wizards, learning many wonderful ways to use magic to do things for him.

He learned how to make things float, and how to make them move around on their own, and even how to have them follow simple commands, like sweep this room, or butter that piece of bread (with just the right amount of butter, and maybe a dollop of honey, thank you very much).

He could clean small areas with just a flick and swish of his wand, and do many other really nifty things with an almost total lack of effort that 'normal' people, especially lazy teenagers, could only wish for.

Unfortunately, a bunch of hopeless bureaucrats suffered a particularly unfortunate bout of sustained idiocy and made, in Harry's opinion, the totally unreasonable decision that children should not be allowed to cast spells outside of school.

So, at the end of each year, Harry returned to his summer residence, the home of his hateful Aunt Petunia and spiteful Uncle Vernon, able to perform absolutely astounding feats of magic, but prohibited from casting even the simplest cleaning spell.

It was frustrating enough to drive a normal person insane, but Harry considered going mad a whole lot more effort than it was worth. He knew from prior personal experience at his old primary school that putting underpants on his head and sticking pencils up his nose while saying "Wibble" was only worth half a day off and a measly two-hour session with a disinterested counsellor (Harry's miserly guardians refused to pay for the pills that might have made it all worthwhile).

In the Wizarding world, Harry was pretty certain that kind of behaviour would not even be considered eccentric as, in his oppion, most wizards he had encountered so far were decidedly strange, if not completely off their tree.

Luckily, he discovered that like most rules, the laws had many loopholes, and using magical objects while away from school was allowed.

So before leaving the train after his second year finished, Harry collected as many magical devices and objects as he could manage to pack into his magically expanded pockets (and trunk, and book bag, and various other containers, vessels and jars, even sticking some under his hat) with the express intention of having access to some of the benefits of magic without actually casting any spells.

He had magical brushes and brooms for the mundane housework his spiteful Aunty always made him do while she took her precious (and unbearably obese) son, Dudley, out for 'excursions'.

He had enchanted hedge cutters, shovels, hand trowels, and other implements for the inevitable gardening chores his twit of an Uncle insisted were required for Harry to 'pay his way', when in fact just not murdering them all in their sleep should have been sufficient 'payment'.

He even had a larder full of house-elf prepared, ready-to-eat food stashed into an extra special section of his trunk that would stay fresh (and exactly the right temperature) so that he did not have to bother trying to get a decent meal from his relatives.

All in all, Harry was all set for a summer of dozing under the tree in the back yard and doing absolutely nothing constructive while still appearing to be working his fingers to the bone.

He had specific days allocated to watching TV when the house was due to be empty and an enchanted paintbrush took care of repainting the shed. He had a schedule for using dictating quills to write personalised form letters to annoying girls from school that would bother him too much if he just ignored them. Then there were days where he could instantly provide the full meals that his 'family' expected him to slave over, simply by pulling them, readymade, out of his trunk.

He didn't even feel the need to invent anything new for the coming school year, since he figured he had pretty much mastered everything he needed to keep his school workload under control, and there was no sense in putting even more effort into it.

Unfortunately, that all changed in a moment, and his well-planned summer fell apart like a, well, a really good plan that would no longer work because somebody muffed it up.

"Marge? Uncle Vernon's sister, Marge?" asked Harry, so dumbfounded by news of the impending visit that he felt compelled to speak in more than the monosyllables he had recently taken to using when communicating with the Dursleys (because they really were not worth the effort of full sentences or complex words).

"Yes," snapped Aunt Petunia.

"And I suppose she'll be bringing that vicious little mutant rat? The one that keeps trying to bite my leg off and rub its belly on everything?" asked Harry, just to be sure the situation was really as bad as he thought it was.

Not that it would have been much better even if Marge's dog had suffered a terminal accident involving a lorry, a chainsaw, or something equally as severe. Even Aunt Petunia turned up her nose in disgust at the mention of Ripper and his habits.

"Yes," she snapped irritably, beginning the process of working herself up into a rant on how Harry was to behave while the visitor was in the house.

"Right, that's it then," said Harry, before Petunia's tirade could get started. "I'm out."

Ten minutes later, Harry was sitting on the Magical Knight Bus heading to London and Diagon alley.

The majority of his worldly possessions were on the seat next to him, packed away in his trunk (his real trunk, not the mostly empty one Vernon had locked under the stairs to 'prevent Harry doing anything freaky'), and Hedwig, the plump owl, was snoozing in her cage on his other side - He had tried to send her on ahead but she refused to fly anywhere when there was a perfectly good bus all ready to take them there anyway.

Sure, it meant all his plans for the holidays were ruined, but there was simply no way he was subjecting himself to the presence of that woman and her beast.

While the thought of staying alone in the Leaky Cauldron until school started was frankly a bit terrifying, it was still a great deal more attractive than the alternative of either being attacked by a rabid mutt, or ending up in jail for accidental magic turning said mutt and its owner into cabbages (or something else just as disgusting).

Of course, a more 'normal' kid his age would be much more worried, and possibly even a bit panicked at running out on their own, but Harry decided long ago that unnecessarily raising his blood pressure by envisioning all manner of worst case scenarios was a total waste of effort and he was better off just going with it until the 'wheels came off'.

And when the wheels did come off, as they almost always did, he planned on trying to hitch a lift to somewhere else.

Arriving at the Leaky Cauldron with only a minor concussion from the bus trip, Harry had no problem getting a very affordable room until he was due to return to school. Tom even carried Harry's trunk up for him and showed him how to work the various magical facilities, which included an awesome whirlpool bath-thing big enough to drown a small horse in, and some rather silly 'mood' lighting options that Harry really didn't see a need for.

Plonking himself down onto the bed as soon as Tom left, Harry touched his wand twice to the headboard and smiled as the bed started vibrating soothingly - which Harry also found a bit weird for a bed to do, but strangely comforting.

For a moment he was puzzled by the image of a boy laying on the ceiling, and then even more confused when he realised it was actually a mirror directly over the bed.

Why would anybody need a mirror on the roof above their bed?

"Well," he thought. "I guess I can use it to put my tie on without getting out of bed."

And with that happy idea, he drifted off into a blissful sleep.

#

Ripper happily strode the street, his little doggy head held high as he surveyed his domain.

There were only a few other dogs in this neighbourhood, and none of them acted remotely as aggressive, so his tiny mind felt it had established his dominance over the locals. It helped immensely that every other dog he encountered was either on a leash or locked behind fences and gates.

This was Ripper's third night of freedom after digging under the fence of the yard where his owner was staying. He didn't usually escaped so soon into these infrequent visits, but his normal victim was absent this time, and it had only taken one day to completely destroy the garden, leaving the small minded dog quite bored.

Nearing his destination, his age-affected eyesight spotted another dog in the distance, hiding in some bushes with just its shaggy black face poking through to spy on Ripper's temporary home.

Ripper let out a rumbling growl and rushed towards the interloper, puffing himself up to be as menacing as possible as he started yapping loudly to scare away the other beast.

The shaggy dog lifted its head up, obviously caught by surprise.

Ripper charged in closer, yapping even more furiously as the other dog's messy face rose up, and up, and up. In fact, it did not seem to be stopping.

The barking died in Ripper's throat and he scrambled to a halt, even taking a step backwards as the size of his opponent became apparent.

Padfoot looked down at the now shaking Ripper and gave a very un-dog-like grin.

#

Several weeks later, Harry was surprised to receive birthday cards from his Hogwarts friends. He was surprised mainly because he hadn't noticed that his birthday had arrived.

It was hard enough keeping track of day and night, let alone what day of the week it was. The month was really just too much of a hassle to bother with.

The opportunity to sleep, eat, and do absolutely nothing whenever and wherever he wanted was a rare treat that Harry was determined not to ruin by doing silly, unnecessary things, like keeping track of the date.

There were a few occasional days (and nights) spent wandering around the alley, but shopping was not his thing. Nor was studying, despite the fact he had an absolute trunk load of homework to make up excuses for not doing, but he had so far managed to avoid anything even slightly work-like, aside from occasionally reading some of the daily newspapers people left on the tables at the Leaky Cauldron.

Well, reading the comics, not the 'real' newspaper stories; those were boring, although the news about a nutter called Sirius Black escaping was mildly interesting. There were certainly enough people talking about it to make Harry take note.

He sent a few pre-written form letters to his friends, in particular Hermione, but since he dictated those letters before he knew he would be spending his holidays in the alley, only a couple were still usable. Besides, he did not want to get into the habit of writing loads of letters, in case it encouraged people to expect more from him.

Buried amongst his birthday presents and cards was also his Hogwarts letter, with its attached list of things he needed to get around to buying before school started, and an extra bit of paper that turned out to be a permission slip for going to the local village on weekends.

It was a bit late to somehow convince his uncle to make his chop on it now, but all was not lost. After all, it wasn't like Harry hadn't needed Vernon's signature for various school related activities before, and getting the real thing was often far too difficult, or just not worth the effort.

Taking a ballpoint pen from one of his pockets, Harry quickly and easily scrawled a decent approximation of Vernon's signature in the appropriate place on the slip. He was tempted to sign it Vermin Dundersly, as he had on several other occasions, but he didn't want to push his luck.

Well, not too far anyway.

Hagrid the grounds keeper's gift of a living book that promptly tried to bite Harry's hand off was a bit of a surprise, but it wasn't the worst or even the strangest mail Harry received.

The strangest was a simple note, just one line, written on a Muggle birthday card that could have been bought from any corner store in London.

"Happy birthday, from your Godfather," the note said.

Since he didn't even know he had a Godfather, it was definitely weird, especially when it was signed with what looked like a paw print. Figuring it would likely be one of those things that sorted itself out without any intervention required on his part, Harry simply accepted the card for what it was and moved on without giving it another thought.

The worst letter was from the Ministry of Magic and contained a small booklet entitled: "Your Body and You – a Guide for new Adolescents."

With a horrifying feeling of dread, and an overwhelming morbid fascination, Harry opened the slim textbook and began to read, his eyes bulging and his face turning various shades of red as he progressed, horrid curiosity dragging his mind into areas he would not normally venture.

"Dear Merlin," he whispered to himself in horror at the information forcing itself into his mind.

#

"Hello, Mr Potter," crackled the ancient looking witch behind the counter of Curiosities and Collectibles. "Here to sell your old things again are we?"

"Yes," said Harry grinning widely, "but only if you give me a better price this time."

"Cheeky bugger you are," she laughed.

After spending a great deal of time with Lockhart the previous year, Harry had re-evaluated his worth in the merchandise crazy world. Hearing how much people were willing to pay for his old books and clothes made Harry realise that, while he was happy with the deal he made previously, he could do a lot better.

Harry liked money. Money meant, amongst other things, being able to pay somebody else to do the stuff he didn't want to. With enough money, he figured he could pay people to do even the most mundane task for him, like walking.

To somebody who knew how to fly a broom, or a magic carpet, walking was definitely over-rated.

"Most of my clothes still fit, so I've only got a couple of sets to sell I'm afraid," he said. "And I'll need to keep most of my books for revision and stuff."

It wasn't exactly a lie, but flooding the market with cheap, elf made socks had taught Harry to keep supply tight.

"Well, for a few galleons I'll swap all your old worn-out things for new ones," suggested the witch.

"Okay, you give me ten galleons and all new gear, item for item then," Harry said. "And I'll even throw in a couple of photos of me and Gilderoy Lockhart I have. Signed by both of us, no less."

Harry knew it wasn't usual for people to walk out of a shop with more money than they went in, and with all new purchases to boot, but the smile on the old sales-witch told him there were no losers in this transaction.

"Cheeky bugger," she repeated with another laugh.

#

"Hey, Nev," said Harry, spying one of his year-mates pacing outside a shop. "What's up, mate?"

"I've lost my book list," whispered Neville nervously as he frantically checked and rechecked his pockets. "Gran's going to kill me."

Harry caught a glimpse of an elderly, very stern looking woman approaching them as Neville's panic grew. She did not look like somebody Harry wanted to cross, and it was far too late to make a run for it as she had very clearly seen Harry talking to Neville.

"Here, take mine," he said quickly thrusting his list into Neville's hand as he put his arm around Neville in what he hoped looked like a friendly, casual manner.

Smiling, he watched Neville's gran close the last few feet between them. There followed an incredibly awkward moment where Neville did his best to formally introduce them, while Harry tried hard to ignore the almost savage corrections and comments elderly Mrs Longbottom made on Neville's earnest efforts.

He finally managed to excuse himself and get away after spotting a tanned Hermione carrying what looked like a small, ugly tiger.

"So Hermy, that's a lovely puss-"

"Don't even think about finishing that comment if you value your life," interrupted Hermione.

"I was just going to comment on how wonderful it is that we can all get to see your puss-" Harry tried again.

"I have been forced by my incredibly lame father to watch 'Are you being Served' at least a thousand times, Harry, and if you insist on using any of those jokes –"

"You mean the ones about Mrs Slowcu-"

"-I'll introduce you to some very nasty hexes I discovered in a very old book Ron brought back from Egypt for me."

"Ron? Bought you a book?" asked Harry incredulously. "A book not about Quidditch?"

"It was very nice thing he did to thank me for all the help I gave him last year," she explained a bit defensively. "Even if it wasn't totally his idea, and even if he didn't write to me often while he was on holidays, at least he made an effort and didn't just send me form letters!"

"Hey, I filled in the blanks!" said Harry.

"You sent Susan the same letter," said Hermione indignantly.

"No I didn't," said Harry. "It was completely different!"

"The only thing different was my name at the top," she snapped. "And an extra line insulting me about the number of subjects I am taking this year."

"See? Completely different!" said Harry, smiling innocently. "Personalised and all."

"You are, without a doubt, one of the most infuriating boys I have ever met," she said.

"And you are already stressing out before you even take a single class," laughed Harry. "Just like I said you would. Now, stop nagging and let me touch your puss-"

"That's it," she screamed dropping the huge fur ball and reaching for her wand, but Harry was already gone, moving much faster than somebody as lazy as he should have been able to.

Laughing, Hermione took off after him, leaving a gobsmacked Neville and his disapproving grandmother behind.

"And you associate with these children?" the older Longbottom asked.

"Not often, but it sure beats putting up with Malfoy," said Neville, distracted and not really thinking about who he was speaking too.

"Indeed," agreed the matron, surprising her grandson.

#

"Potter," drawled Malfoy.

"Hmmmff," mumbled Harry, squinting his eyes and twisting his jaw.

Draco paused for a moment, completely unsure what to do next.

"Is he having a seizure or something?" he finally asked the girls watching Harry.

"He scoffed his ice-cream and has brain freeze," Susan Bones answered, ignoring the rudeness of Draco not bothering to acknowledge her presence before asking his question.

She sedately took another small spoon of her own desert while Harry pounded his fist on his forehead.

"Just how big a bite did he take?" asked Draco, unable to take his eyes off the spectacle Harry was making.

"I don't think he could actually fit any more in his mouth," admitted Hannah as Harry began banging his head on the table, his fist apparently not doing the job.

"Well, when he recovers, tell him father says he shouldn't be too public about catching up with his godfather," said Draco, finally managing to take his eyes away from where Harry was convulsing on the floor to look at the two girls.

"Er, okay."

"Thank you," said Draco, then he turned and walked away.

"Well that was a lot politer than usual," said Susan as Harry dragged himself up off the floor.

"You know you could have just talked to him," suggested Hannah.

"Nah," said Harry, picking up the spoon he had dropped earlier. "Trust me, this way is much easier than trying to pretend I know whatever the hell he is talking about, and it's kind of fun."

Hannah laughed. Susan shook her head and took another dainty spoonful of her desert. She looked up just in time to see Harry shovel another massive lump of ice cream into his mouth, this time for no discernible reason.

"Boys," she sighed as Harry clutched his head between his hands and began to silently scream.


	2. Chapter 2 - Tempting Fate

_One again, many thanks to the members of Alpha fight club who's many ideas and suggestions I have shamelessly stolen and used in this fic. _

_Apologies for the shortness of this chapter. _

#

In one of the last cabins on the train, Hermione finally found Harry.

He was already asleep, as she expected, but what she wasn't expecting was for him to be leaning against a just-as-asleep man, a professor, if she interpreted the writing on the trunk above them correctly.

She was only slightly surprised to find Luna, the strange girl Harry befriended last year, also asleep, and leaning up against Harry, making the three of them look like a human domino set that had fallen over.

"Well, Crookshanks," she said to the huge cat in her arms. "Looks like I've just got you for conversation this trip."

The cat rumbled a deep purr, and then jumped out of her arms to land on the seat next to Luna. He then promptly climbed onto the sleeping blonde girl's lap and settled down, presumably to join the others in their slumber.

"Traitor," Hermione hissed at the cat before taking a book out of her bag and getting comfortable on the opposite seat before uttering a statement she would later come to very much regret.

"Looks like it's going to be a fairly boring trip then."

#

"Potter, is it true? Did you really sleep through a Dementor attack?" asked Justin as they climbed off the train and made their way to the waiting carriages.

"Dementor?" asked Harry, wearily scratching his sleep messed hair (which was no different from his normal messed hair really). "Is that the big trench-coat wearing clown head thing?"

"Clown?"

"Yeah, got its mouth open like those clown heads you drop balls in at the fair. You know, like this," said Harry.

He opened his mouth in a wide 'O' shape and rolled his eyes up as far as he could in a deplorable imitation of both a Dementor and the sideshow game he was trying to demonstrate.

"Great Merlin, Harry, stop that," said Zachariah. "You look like that bloody manikin from last year."

"Sorry," apologised Harry. "Anyway, is that the thing you are talking about?"

"A clown? You are such a Muggle, Potter. It's one of the most dangerous creatures in the world and you call it a clown, but, yeah that's it. Did you really sleep through its attack?"

"Attack? All it did was come in and makes us all a bit cold, then Luna enlarged a cork off her necklace and stuck it into the thing's mouth. Apparently that stopped it for a minute, and then a professor chased it off."

"And you slept through it?"

"Well, sort of. I did wake up, but once all the excitement was over I went back to sleep."

"The man nearly has his soul eaten by a monster and he goes back to sleep! You really are something, Harry," marvelled Zach.

"Thanks, I think," Harry replied.

He wasn't going to tell them he had many years practice dealing with nightmares on his own while locked in a small, dark cupboard, and screaming was hardly the worst thing he had ever dreamt. Not because he was embarrassed by it, but because explaining would just have taken far too long and would undoubtedly lead to other tales he did not want to spend the energy telling or listening to.

"So, Harry, what great inventions have you got planned for us this year?"

"None," said Harry. "Not this year. I'm kind of sitting this one out."

"You're what?" asked Ernie, catching up with his classmates.

"Sitting it out," repeated Harry. "I think I've got everything I need for this year, so there's not much point in making more stuff."

"Oh," said Ernie.

"Yep, I can't think of anything I'll need this year that I don't already have," said Harry. "So I've decided to sit back and enjoy the already picked fruits of my labour. I'm not going to do anything this year, just you watch. Nothing is going to disrupt my year."

For some reason, an unsettling chill run down the back of everybody who heard that pronouncement.

#

"Mr Potter," said Professor Sprout. "I did not receive your list of electives. Which ones are you taking?"

"None," said Harry brightly.

"None? What do you mean, 'none'?" asked his head of house, her voice changing only slightly from the pleasant, happy tone students were mostly used to hearing from her.

"Well, they're electives aren't they? I've elected not to take any of them," explained Harry, still smiling.

Of course, he knew this was not going to work, but he just had to try.

#

"Hermione, can Arithmancy be done using a calculator?"

The girl in question furrowed her brow in deep thought.

"I think there are probably many parts of it that could be," she answered after a moment. "But I don't know if one could handle the equations, not to mention electrical devices have a lot of issues in areas with as much concentrated magic as Hogwarts. Why, are you thinking about taking the class? You should. I am taking it and it will be loads of fun."

"You are taking all the classes aren't you?" asked Harry. "So it doesn't matter what I take, you'll be there."

"Yes, well, but be that as it may, I still think it is a really interesting and worthwhile class."

Harry thought about it. Maybe he could get a mechanical calculator and figure out how to get it to do the maths Arithmancy apparently involved.

Then again, he was taking a year off.

"Nah," he said. "I might have, but I've already got something that will help me with Divination, so that tips the balance."

Hermione frowned, quite used to seeing her friend's offhand comments as alluding to things much 'bigger' than most people's small talk.

"How could you already have made something without knowing anything about the class aside from the descriptions in the course handbook?" she asked, overcoming her fear the answer would add to the brain haemorrhage she was sure Harry was unintentionally giving her.

"I didn't make it, I bought it. In Muggle London, no less. Here look," he said.

Harry reached into his pocket and pulled out a black glass sphere that had a smaller white circle painted on it.

"You have got to be kidding me," said Hermione in disbelief.

Harry just smiled and shook the globe, holding it out so that they could both see into the little white circle.

The words 'No Way' floated out of the depths of the liquid filled globe.

Hermione groaned in disgust. Harry smiled.

"Figured I'd take Care of magical creatures, mainly because Hagrid has already got me the book and isn't likely to overload us with work, Muggle Studies, because, well I'm at least half a Muggle really, and it was a tossup between Arithmancy and Divination."

"Why are you taking three electives when you only have to do two?" asked Hermione before her brain caught up and put a stop to more mental damage causing questions.

"Ah, that way I can claim the other two classes are taking up so much time that I am having trouble getting all the work done for whatever one I am in at that moment. If I only take two classes the professors will know that's a lie, but this way, they'll sympathise," explained Harry.

"But you will still have to pass the exams!" insisted Hermione.

"Don't you remember? All you have to do is pass one O.W.L. and you are an adult wizard," said Harry. "By taking an extra class I am improving my chances of finding the easiest one to pass."

Hermione's expression became one of uncertainty and she didn't say anything for a few seconds.

"I really don't know if I should be proud that you are doing more than the minimum, or disgusted at you," she admitted after a few moments.

"Why bother deciding by yourself? Just use the Magic 8-Ball," Harry answered shaking the globe again.

"It's a distinct possibility," read the ball.

#

The first round of classes passed pretty much how Harry had planned them to.

"But Professor McGonagall, how could I possibly concentrate enough to do homework with that insane mass murderer. Sirius Black, on the loose?" asked Harry in his most sincere voice.

"But Professor Flitwick, surely you can understand I was too distraught to do any homework?" he pleaded.

"But I was too terrified to set foot outside!" exclaimed Harry to Professor Sprout. "I couldn't do any of the observations you wanted."

"But I was, er – you know what, forget it, I'm not even going to try," said Harry to Professor Snape. "Just take the points and let's get on with it."

#

"Where the bloody hell is it?" asked Zachariah, while angrily rummaging through his book bag.

Harry thought about asking what he was searching for, but decided against it, since it might end up getting him involved.

People often did that – complain loudly enough to get somebody else to help them. Dudley was a rolling mess of none stop whinging around his parents, who both rushed to do anything they could for their 'baby'. Harry was just waiting for the day they started chewing his food for him.

For Harry though, long ago he found that 'trick' took far too much effort, was particularly ineffective with the Dursleys (not that he wanted his food pre-chewed by Vernon or Petunia, no matter how much easier that would make eating!), and just asking people to help him when he needed it was by far the easiest way, but somebody else was bound to fall for it this time.

"Where's what?" asked Ernie, causing Harry to smile secretly to himself as his internal prediction was confirmed and Ernie fell for it.

"That stupid book we need for Creatures," answered Zachariah. "I'm, sure I put it in here, but I can't find it now. Why the hell did I enlarge this bag so much?"

Harry declined to comment, knowing Zachariah, was trying to attach some of the blame for losing his book to Harry, since he was the one that started the bag-expansion trend last year.

"It probably ran away," said Ernie. "I found mine hiding under the bed."

"Nah, I petrified it after it took a piece out of my History of magic book," said Zachariah, still rummaging around inside the obviously massive satchel. "It's hiding in here somewhere, I just know it. I mean it's not like somebody would have taken the stupid bloody thing."

#

_Deep in the kitchens of Hogwarts, the excitement was rising to new heights as the cages opened and the combatants raced into the ring. The animated books immediately began viciously tearing into each other, spurring the cheers of the crowd into a near-frenzy and sending an artificial snowstorm of shredded paper into the air._

"This being even better than Merefolk-fishing!" exclaimed one young elf.

#

"Ah, here it is," Zac finally announced, pulling out the many-toothed volume.

"Merlin, Zac. What have you been doing to it? It looks like a kneazle has been chewing on it!" said Ernie.

"What the hell?" asked Zachariah, eyeing the beaten and torn book warily.

Harry continued to say nothing, but thought about ordering more of the dog collar and muzzle combinations he had secured his own copy of the Monster book of Monsters with before simply asking Hagrid how to control them.

Nah, they'd figure it out eventually, and there was still a fair bit of fun to be had watching them struggle until then.

"Oh, that's not good," interrupted the voice of a worried looking Ravenclaw as they sighted the cabin where Hagrid was waiting out front for them.

Harry was fairly certain the student had a name, but so far they had not interacted enough to warrant recalling it.

"What?" asked Hannah.

"Hagrid's got a wooden club. If he needs a club to control whatever it is he is going to show us, it has got to be stupidly dangerous."

There was worried murmur of agreement from the other students as they stopped their approach towards Hagrid, the cricket bat sized club in his massive hands looking like a twig.

"You Ravenclaws over think things," said Harry with a snort of disgust. "Don't go borrowing trouble by dreaming up all the way things can go bad. Just wait see before getting yourself worked up into a frenzy of worry."

"You can talk," said Susan. "You always plan for the worst."

"Plan, yeah, but I don't go getting all fussed about it," said Harry. "I mean, come on - It's Hagrid. He hardly needs a club to beat the living magic out of something now, does he? And it's not like he would ever do any such thing anyway, is it?"

There was a general rumble of muted agreement; Hagrid's inner gentle nature was as famous as his love of monstrous beasts.

"Come on," encouraged Harry. "You don't want to miss a lesson now, do you?"

Still looking apprehensive, the group moved on, not noticing Harry dropping towards the back.

After all, a four-by-two was not much more than a rolled up newspaper to the huge man, and if he did have a pet that needed a bit of 'gentle' encouragement, Harry did not want to be in the front row.

"Of course I probably should have done a bit more of a background check about what Hagrid is likely to show us," he mumbled to himself.

"Are you telling me you have done nothing to prepare for this class?" asked a Ravenclaw who obviously overheard him. Ant or Anthony or something was his name. "You, the boy who requested thirty four years of previous assignments as reference material to help him choose his other elective subjects, didn't think about this one?"

"I didn't say that," admitted Harry. "I mean, I did all the sensible things, like make sure I am wearing this older set of robes, and I had a bucket load of cushioning and anti-piercing charms put on them. Plus I'm wearing ex-army surplus, steel capped boots, and I've got a pair of Dragon-hide gloves and a first aid kit ready to go, but I should have asked somebody to snoop around a bit so we had a better idea.

"Still, I'm not going to get all worked up about the fact Hagrid is carrying a club. I mean, maybe it has nothing to do with the animals he is teaching us about and he just uses it to beat students who don't pay attention or show proper respect?"

This did not reassure Anthony or any of the others that heard, and they all suddenly felt very vulnerable.

#

"A wand?" Harry asked in amazement as Hagrid waved the huge wand to summon the ropes of the Hippogriffs. "That tree trunk is a wand?"

"Twenty eight and half inches, Ash with eye of Newt core," announced Hagrid proudly. "Good for basic spellwork and – "

Hagrid suddenly swung his wand out and smacked down the raised claw of the Hippogriff that was about to gut one of the pretty Indian twins Harry was so much more aware of this year.

"Get back, ya silly creature," he ordered, using his wand to poke the snarling beast back. "And good for giving things a bit of a whack now and then."

Harry gave Ant an apologetic look.

"I think Olivander was going to make a broom handle or sum'in out of it before I came in. 'Course, it's all thanks to you Harry, for suggesting how I could go about clearing me name up last year and all that."

Harry smiled weakly, genuinely happy for Hagrid, but worried about the possibly ramifications of having the huge man want to repay him in some way. His concern was shown to be justified towards the end of the lesson.

"Tell ya what. 'Ow about you take him fer a ride, eh?" asked Hagrid enthusiastically.

"Not unless you have a saddle, and a muzzle." answered Harry. "And a parachute. Definitely a parachute."

"Well I ain't got no parachute, whatever that is, but you'll be right," said Hagrid, grabbing the back of Harry's robes and lifting him onto the creatures back. "Off ya go."

Then he slapped the hippogriff's rump, sending the creature racing, Harry clinging desperately to its back.

#

"Wow, Harry," said Ernie in an awed voice. "You really can fly, can't you? I thought for sure you were going to fall off when it landed."

"Nah," said Harry, grimacing as they walked back up to the castle.

"I dunno. The speed that Buckbeak came in at was pretty crazy," said Zachariah. "I thought he was trying to throw you off, the way he slammed on the brakes. And those loops and things looked bloody amazing, but seriously dangerous."

"Probably was," agreed Harry, carefully taking each step up the slope.

"Well you are a hell of a flyer for not getting tossed," said Ernie.

"Couldn't," gasped Harry, earning a confused look from his friends.

"Why's that? Afraid of looking bad in front of the Ravenclaws or something?" teased Zachariah.

"Or the girls at least," added Ernie, smiling. "Wouldn't want to land face first in the dirt in front of the girls now, would you Harry?"

"Nah," explained Harry. "I got a couple of seconds to think after we took off, and I managed to use my wand."

A shocked silence greeted that announcement.

"You got some balls casting a spell on the beast while you were in the air," said Ernie, even more awed. "What did you do to it?"

"To it? Nothing – I'm lazy, not suicidal," said Harry, stopping to catch his breath. "No, I cast a sticking charm on myself to make sure I couldn't fall off."

Another second of silence followed, and then the other two boys began to grin.

"It wasn't on your hands was it?" asked Zachariah, a sly smile creeping onto his face.

"No, it was not on my hands," admitted Harry.

"And that's why you are walking funny, isn't it?" Zachariah added.

"Yep."

"You caste a sticking charm on your behind, didn't you?"

"Do you really need it spelt out?" asked Harry.

"Oh yeah," laughed Ernie. "We need to make completely certain that we have all of the facts straight so that when we retell this story, it can't be contradicted in any way."

"You sound like a bleeding 'claw," grumbled Harry, a little bit annoyed at their laughing and teasing.

"Are you going to go to the infirmary?" asked Ernie.

"Nope. No way am I going to march up all those steps just to get poked and prodded in a currently very sensitive section of my body," explained Harry, starting to walk again before stopping with a thoughtful look on his face. "Then again, it could get me out of classes for a day or two- come on lads, I need a lift to the infirmary – that'll get you a half hour off the next class. Hope you have all practiced your levitation charms."

Trying hard not to laugh, but unable to hide their grins at his unfortunately injury, his friends drew their wands and prepared to figure out how to levitate Harry to the infirmary without causing further pain.

"I wonder what Hagrid will have next week," said Ernie with far too much enthusiasm.

Harry groaned.


	3. Chapter 3 - Animal Kingdoms

_Don't expect much more, sorry._

#

"Harry, can I ask you for a big favour," said Hermione's voice from somewhere to the left of where Harry was once again failing to achieve the blissful nothingness state of mind one of his mediation books referred to.

Of course most people would just say he was trying to nap.

"Shush," he said. "Sleeping"

"No you're not," she answered. "When you are actually, asleep you move around a lot more."

"Good to know," said Harry, thinking about how some people always seemed to be able to tell. "If I pinned a sign to my chest saying I was, do you think more people would leave me alone?"

"No."

"Thought not," he said, opening his eyes and sitting up. "So anyway, go ahead and ask."

It went without saying that he wasn't promising to do anything beside listen to her ask.

"I need you keep Crookshanks in your common room for a few days. Dumb-head Ron is making a fuss over the fact his stupid rat doesn't know to keep away from a cat and it's completely unfair to keep Crookshanks locked in my bedroom while that ugly thing gets to wander all over the common room."

"Who, Ron?"

"No," she sighed. "His filthy rat. Scabs or whatever its name is."

"Ah, yes. Low maintenance one he is. Bit on the smelly side, even for a rat, but no real taking care of required at all," said Harry, turning to look at Hermione and her giant pet. "I'm not sure why you are asking me to care for another living creature though – it's not like I am the most responsible person around."

"True," admitted Hermione, "but the only other person Crookshanks has tolerated is Luna, and she keeps trying to comb Nagles out of his fur with a chilli pepper while explaining to him how to hunt wild books."

Harry knew better than ask what Nargles were, or wild books for that matter.

"Hmm, okay," he said. "I'll take him into the common room and set him free, but you know I am not going to do much more than that, right? I mean the wards should keep him inside, and the house elves usually take care of the pets, but if he has any special needs or anything, I am so not your Huckleberry."

"I know you like cats," said Hermione handing over the plus-sized pussy. "So I trust you to keep an eye out for him, just for a few days until things calm down. Now, go with Harry, Crookshanks, and Mummy will see you soon."

She gave her pet one last pat before turning away, and Harry was sure he could the glint of a tear in her eyes.

"Well, Shanks, I guess it's just you and me then," he told the heavy animal. "Hey, you wouldn't mind helping me with a little project, would you?"

Crookshanks did not reply.

#

"Harry, there's a rather irate Gryffindor at the door demanding to see you," called one of the seemingly never-ending string of nameless prefects several days later.

"Does she have red hair?" asked Harry, not relaxing his stare for even a micro second.

"Now, but her face is a bit red. She looks rather peaky, truth be told."

"Tell her I'm not here-"

"Harry!" snarled Hermione, barging her way into the common room. "Where is my cat - oh, there you are, Crookshanks."

She ran over and went to pick up the unmoving animal from where it sat in front of Harry, returning his stare, only to be stopped by several of the Hufflepuffs she didn't notice standing around the unlikely pair.

"Sorry, Hermione," said Justin. "You can't interrupt them now, not for another five minutes anyway."

"Ten, not five," added an older student from the other side of the room. "My money is on thirty five."

"Five minutes? What?' she asked, attempting unsuccessfully to step around Justin. "Why? What's going on here? What are you doing with my cat?"

"Shush," said Harry. "Animagus training."

"What! What the hell?" demanded Hermione, tugging her arm from Justin's gentle but firm grip.

"Relax," said one of the prefects. "Nobody is doing anything to your cat, well, except Potter, who is about to make me three galleons in three, two, one - Now!"

Hermione wasn't sure what to expect and prepared herself to pull out her wand.

Nothing happened.

Several people groaned and money started changing hands.

Harry and Crookshanks didn't move.

"If I don't get some answers in the next two seconds-", started Hermione as menacingly as possible, which was surprisingly menacing actually.

"It's like this," explained Susan, coming over to Hermione. "Harry has this dream of becoming an Animagus, a cat animagus specifically."

"Harry, an animagus? That's, that's-" stuttered Hermione.

"Ambitious?" offered Susan.

"Ridiculous?" suggested Ernie.

"A joke?" said Justin.

"A dream," stated Harry, then cursed loudly as he realised he had blinked as he spoke, the vision of his goal momentarily disrupting his concentration.

Loud groans alternated with cheers as more money changed hands around the room and the crowd began to disperse.

"Bugger," swore Harry, rubbing his eyes and then reaching over to pat Crookshanks fondly on the head.

Crookshanks purred loudly and began grooming himself with an air of satisfaction.

"Anyway," said Susan, continuing her tale. "Harry has been spending so much time studying Crookshanks that it became a sort of a competition to see who would look away first. Crookshanks is winning so far - five to three I believe."

"You are betting on a cat staring contest?" asked Hermione still somewhat bewildered.

"Yeah. Hey don't judge, it gets pretty boring around here sometimes," said Ernie.

At this point, Hermione wondered if Nargle combing would not have been a better choice.

Hufflepuffs were decidedly weird.

#

There was something strange about the new Defence against the Arts Professor, decided Harry, and it was not just that he had not yet taken any special interest in, or tried to kill, Harry.

For starters, he seemed to really know his stuff, and in Harry's rather limited experience, that was just odd.

Mind you, the lesson plan appeared to be designed to cover many aspects of Care of Magical Creatures, almost as if the overlap was done on purpose to cover for Hagrid's rather spotty, although interesting, teaching. So they still weren't learning much in the way of defence against people using the dark arts, but they were learning something.

Then there was the matter of the way Lupin disappeared for a few days here and there after looking increasingly stressed.

The first time it happened, Harry was certain the seemingly sensible man had made a run for it, but he came back, although looking like he had gone a few rounds with one of Hagrid's 'cuddlier' pets.

Harry's thought that somebody had caught him trying to escape and dragged him back didn't seem to bear out as Lupin didn't appear to hold any grudge against any of the other Professors, not even Snape.

_Must be a drunk,_ thought Harry. That would certainly explain a lot, like the ragged clothes, the generally unkept appearance, Snape's obvious loathing (although that could just have been the potion master's usual disposition; it was pretty hard to tell), the missing days, and of course, how he had been roped into the famously cursed position to begin with.

The headmaster had probably abducted him off a park bench somewhere and loaded him onto the train before the poor guy knew what was happening.

Mystery solved (or close enough), Harry returned his attention to the subject matter currently under discussion in an entirely different class that was proving to be a lot more disappointing than he had hoped.

"Hieroscopy is the Roman soothsayer art of diving the future using bird entrails," droned the hippy-haired, bug-eyed Professor from the other side of the smoke filled class room in what could only be described and the worst 'mysterious' voice ever.

_What is it with animals this year?_ thought Harry to himself with more than a little disgust, his magic eight ball sitting practically unused in his bag.

#

Loping silently, Padfoot cautiously made his way along the dark passageway. It was well after curfew, but he well knew how often students would likely be sneaking about.

A quiet scurrying noise made him instantly freeze, one paw still raised in the air.

Seconds ticked by as he waited, completely motionless, but nothing else happened. He was about to write it off as his imagination, or one of the students many pets, and move on when it started again.

It was a most un-pet-like noise, sounding more like rustling paper, and it was coming closer.

Suddenly, something stepped around the corner.

It was a book.

A somehow angry looking book.

A somehow angry looking book running on its opened edge like a weird spider.

And it was somehow now looking at him.

He looked back in shock.

They stood looking at each other for another moment, and then the book suddenly lurched forward, obviously deciding to attack.

Sirius instantly prepared himself to fight and was in the process of leaping forward when two small figures suddenly burst out of nowhere and fell upon the book.

Barely managing to catch himself, Sirius skidded to a stop.

"Bad book!" whispered one of the attacking house elves as it wrestled the book to the ground and tried to tie it up with a short length of rope.

"Naughty, naughty, naughty," whispered the other one angrily, thumping the book with a candlestick almost as large as itself.

In short order they had the book bound and under control.

"I been telling youse theys been breeding," said the first elf as it hoisted the still struggling book onto its back.

Then both elves suddenly stopped and turn to look up at the dumbstruck Sirius still sitting on his haunches nearby.

"Yous not be telling anybodies about dis, will yous, big dogsy?" asked the second elf, hefting his club rather menacingly.

Sirius dumbly shook his head, too astounded to do anything else.

"Good dogsy," said the elf. "Maybes you come by kitchens and we's be giving you foods for being such a good dogsy."

Sirius just stared.

"Good boy," said the first elf, then they glanced at each other before disappearing with a sharp 'crack'.

Sirius sat for a minute more, trying to process what he had just witnessed. In the end, he gave up and continued on his way to find and Peter.

Maybe afterwards he would swing by the kitchens.

#

"But Professor, I was so scared by Black being in the castle I just couldn't possibly do my assignments," explained Harry sincerely to the doubtful looking Transfiguration Professor.

"I haven't slept in days," said Harry in the most pitiful voice he could muster, which was quite pitiful at that, to the Charms Professor. "I can barely think, let alone do assignments."

"I've been too terrified to even think about going outside," he told Professor Sprout a slight quiver of fear in his voice. "What if Black gets sane enough not to mistake a rat for me next time?"

"You know the drill," he said to Snape.

#

"Harry," said Susan, interrupting the sleeping-upright-with-his-eyes-open-Harry. "Can I have some of your parchment, since you won't be using it and I am out at the moment."

"Eh?" asked Harry, shaking his head to wake up fully.

He was still sitting in front of the fireplace in the common room, a book sitting in his hands and his school bag contents spread out on the low table in front of him, looking for all the world like he had been studying for hours.

"You've been snoring for the last twenty minutes, so it's pretty obvious you are not doing your assignments," she elaborated. "I need some parchment to finish, please."

"Oh, okay, here," said Harry, reaching into the mess in front of him and pulling out a roll to hand over. "But I was studying."

He couldn't see the point in explaining how his sleep reading worked again, but still strangely felt the need to defend himself this year, especially to the girls for some reason.

"Thanks, oh, wait on. This isn't blank," said Susan unrolling the scroll.

"Oh, sorry," said Harry, sorting through the pile to dig out another, hopefully empty scroll.

"Hang on, this is last week's transfiguration assignment," said Susan, unrolling the original scroll more.

"Yeah, so?" asked Harry, continuing to search.

"But I distinctly recall you didn't hand this in," she answered sounding very confused.

Harry stopped and concentrated for a moment.

"Yeah, probably not," he said, with a shrug. "I don't really remember."

"Why didn't you?" she asked, scanning through it. "I can't see anything very wrong with it."

Harry sighed. He didn't want to explain, but she was the type of person who would keep bugging him if he didn't, and he occasionally felt an odd need to justify himself to people that he thought he had squashed out of himself years ago.

"If I handed every assignment in, the professors would start demanding more from me," said Harry. "First it would be, 'oh you didn't put in enough detail', and then it would be 'oh you could have had more references', and finally 'I know you can do better than this', – it would just go on and on and they would never be satisfied.

"This way, when we get close to the exams, I'll start handing them in, and they'll all think I'm making a real effort and will be happy no matter how average my work is because they will think they have gotten through to me," he finished, a huge grin on his face.

"But why are you doing the work, if you don't intend to hand it in?" asked Hannah, who had come over half way through Harry's explanation.

"Well I do need some practice, but this way I don't have to worry too much about if it is perfect, or if it's on time, etcetera."

Both girls looked at each other then shook their heads at Harry's self-satisfied grin and strange reasoning.

"You know, Harry, you really shouldn't antagonise the professors all of the time," said Susan.

"I don't specifically do it to antagonise them on purpose," said Harry. "Well, aside from Snape that is, and he deserves it."

Neither of them could disagree with that.

#

"Harry, can I see you for a moment?" asked Professor Lupin as the rest of the students fled the defence classroom after the lesson.

Harry sighed. He really thought he was going to get away with it for a bit longer.

"Yes, sir?" he asked politely, still hoping it was about something different.

"It's about your last assignment, your last three assignments actually," explained Lupin.

Harry tried his puppy-dog eyes.

"Yes, sir?" he said, feigning innocence.

"You can put that look away, young man. Your father was master of it and I am quite immune after many years of exposure-"

"Wait, you knew my father?" asked Harry quickly.

"Well, yes," said Lupin caught by surprise at Harry's sudden change in demeanor.

"Were you his teacher too?" asked Harry excitedly.

"His teacher? Good Merlin no. Just how old do you think I am? No – don't answer that - I don't think I want to know. I went to school with your father, all seven years. We were actually quite close," said Lupin.

"And my mum? Did you know her too?" asked Harry even more excitedly. "Can you tell me about them? Please? I don't really know anything about them at all."

Hours later, after Harry was long gone, Lupin looked down at the batch of Harry's assignments.

"Son of a – ," swore Lupin to himself, realising he had been had and Harry had successfully distracted him from reprimanding the boy on his work ethic(or lack thereof), but unable to find a suitable derogatory term to use.

All four of Harry's assignments were identical, aside from the heading and dates, and consisted of a single, neatly written answer:

Kill it with fire.

Harry's four-word answer to the question of how to handle four vastly different creatures was technically correct, but completely violated the spirit and intention of the assignment.

"-a Marauder," finished Lupin in a lighter tone, a smile curling the corners of his mouth and his spirit lifting higher than at almost any point in the previous dozen years. "Son of a Marauder."

#

"Lads, I can't help notice that you somehow seem to always be well provisioned when it comes to the finer things in life," said Harry, plonking down on the seat next to the Weasley twins, Fred and George.

There were not many people brave enough to bring themselves to the attention of the notorious pranksters, but Harry was never worried, mainly because he figured it wouldn't make much difference even if he was.

"Are you referring to our never ending bevy of beauties?" asked one of the twins, nodding his head as a dark skinned girl walked by their library table smiling shyly.

"No, although that is another area of interest," admitted Harry. "I was actually talking about the abundant quantity of Hogsmeade merchandise you appear to have access to."

"Ah," said the other twin. "Run out of goodies already have you, despite going on your first trip only a scant few weeks ago?"

"For shame," added the first twin. "You would think a bright lad like yourself would learn to pace himself, but no, ate his way through the whole stash in a single sitting I'd warrant."

"And was likely sick from class the next day," said the second.

"For shame," they finished together.

"No, actually," said Harry, reaching into one of his many pockets to partially bring forth a bottle of Butterbeer, demonstrating he was far from exhausting his own supply of goodies. "I still have plenty left, for now."

"Oh he's a clever one this one, George," said the first twin.

"Indeed," agreed George. "Which begs the question of why he is here bothering us then."

"Well, I really enjoyed going to Hogsmead, that's for sure," explained Harry, "but I really object to the walk back."

"Uphill most of the way, if I recall correctly," said Fred.

"Indeed it is," agreed George. "I've heard from our younger brother, who sometimes likes to give the impression you are his best mate, Harry, that you are a bit adverse to things like carrying a heavy load of bounty up a hill."

"Adverse to walking in general, if I recall certain tales about a flying carpet and the niece of the current Director of Law enforcement last year correctly," said Fred.

"You are both right, except that my pockets make the actual size of the load pretty much inconsequential," said Harry.

"Then how can we be of service?" asked George. "It seems you'll only have to make one or two trips to be fully provisioned for the remainder of the year."

"Well, as I said, I really liked going there," explained Harry. "Despite all the professors and their warnings of a dire end at the hands of a black man, which I frankly find quite prejudice, it was fun, and I'd like to go every time, but I really don't want to have to walk all that way back. I figured, since you two seem to be able to get there and back at any time, you must have a shortcut or alternate form of transport of some sort."

"Funny you should ask about that," said Fred.

"We were just now wondering ourselves who we might teach the ways of the wicked, and here you are asking about secrets," said George.

"It must be fate," said Fred.

"Indeed, Fred, indeed," said the other twin, presumably George, although it was actually impossible to tell, and Harry didn't really care anyway. "We have long ago mastered the highways and byways of this sacred institution, and feel the need to pass on our knowledge, and then you suddenly appear."

"Well I have made some pretty good progress in mastering the secrets of the stairs," said Harry. "I can almost halve the distance I have to travel between classes by timing it right."

"Ah, yes, you have indeed, little one, we have noticed that, but you have barely scratched the surface of the many secret tunnels within the school," said Fred.

"And none of those without," finished George.

"So it's true - you sneak out? When you need stuff?" asked Harry.

"We do," the twins agreed together.

"Through a secret tunnel or something?"

"One of the few unguarded entries and exits," said George.

"But you actually make the trip yourselves, every time?" asked Harry. "I was rather hoping to find out there was some sort of a delivery system or something that I could hitch a ride on."

"We did have a car that we had planned on using this year, but unfortunately it escaped and hasn't been seen since," said George.

"Poor old Bluey," lamented Fred. "All alone out in the wilderness - I fear he has come to a bad end."

"But enough of lost opportunities and stolen vehicles that have gone rogue and caused a major flood of howlers from our easily upset mother," said George. "Here is how you can get to Hogsmeade and back in record time."

"And do it at any time you want," added Fred.

Harry missed the glint that flashed in the pranksters eyes as they began detailing the 'short cut' through the tunnel to Hogsmeade, and he definitely missed an explanation of how this tunnel made the journey shorter, but since it didn't, it wouldn't have matter anyway.

Later that month, while stumbling through the poorly lit tunnel leading back into the castle, Harry actually regretted his laziness in not questioning the twins more about their 'secret'.

It was one of the few times something seriously brought his outlook on life into question, but then he shrugged it off and didn't bother giving it any further thought.

After all, what's one little set back in the greater scheme of things?

#

"Reportses," ordered Tinsi, her saucepan hat once again falling down over her eyes.

"We's is losings the second pantry and the lower storeroom," said Gutsy, his own colander helmet now fitting quite well due to the large number of dents and teeth marks in it.

"That's is not good," said Tinsi. "We's be needing more recruities."

"Where's we be getting recruities?" asked Gutsy. "We's already pulling elves from cleanings. Soon there be nobody left to cooks and cleans."

"We be finding more recruities, or we be losing dis war," announced Tinsi in a dreadful voice. "Then there be's no ones to cook or clean ever again!"

"No," countered Gutsy. "We's needs to ask for help from master sirs."

The sharp intake of breath from all the elves within hearing range actually lowered the airpressure of the immediate area enough for a few of them to come close to passing out.

"Nobody ever asks master sirs for things," objected another elf who had not yet cleaned well enough to earn a name.

A round of mumbled agreement arose from the throng.

"Yes, we's have," countered Gutsy. "One wizard helps us before."

"Harry Potter sirs!"

"Yes, Harry Potter sirs," agreed Gutsy. "We be asking for help from the great Harry Potter sirs, and he be helping us."

An excited hum of approval now rumbled through the crowd.

#

"Professor Lupin? Oh I already know his secret," said Harry confidently. "I'm surprised nobody else has said anything."

"You worked it out too?" asked Hermione, sounding quite impressed.

"Yeah, ages ago," said Harry. "At first I thought he was a drunk, but I figured it out later when I realised he didn't stink enough. Mind you, I used to see them all the time down the street near the shops, so I suppose I had a bit of an advantage."

"You used to see them, out in the open and recognise them?" asked Hermione.

"Yeah, they were always walking up and down the street down there. It was a pretty bad area, scum everywhere."

"Harry!" said Hermione sternly. "That's no way to talk about those unfortunately people. It's not their fault they are like this."

"True, I suppose," said Harry with a shrug. "At least she looks like a man. Some of the ones I saw looked nothing like a woman, despite their dresses and make up. Not even Vernon was fooled, although I think Dudley probably was. I wonder how she's grown the moustache? Magic I suppose."

Hermione's brow creased in puzzlement as she tried to process Harry's comments.

"Harry," she said hesitantly. "What exactly do you think Professor Lupin is?"

"I can't remember the name of them, transvestitutes or something? You know, the people that like to dress and act like a member of the opposite sex. There was even a bit about them in the stupid 'Your body and you' book we all got at the beginning of the year.

"Transvestite? You think Professor Lupin is a Transvestite? Why?" asked Hermione, trying unsuccessfully to hide her grin.

"Well, he always gets sort of grumpy and short tempered, and then goes missing for a few days every month. I read in that book that some women have a really bad time with their – you know," Harry explained, starting off a bit defensively but fading off in embarrassment.

Hermione blushed and cleared her throat.

"Yes, well, er, no Harry, Professor Lupin is not a woman dressing up as a man. He is a werewolf."

"Oh," said Harry, not sure whether he should feel embarrassed, relieved, or worried.

In the end, he decided it was all too much trouble to feel any of those and so just figured he would ignore it, except -

"You, er, you won't tell anybody what I thought, will you?" asked Harry.

Hermione's feral grin was not reassuring

#

Sirius was seriously worried.

After his last failed attempt at getting the rat, it had gone into hiding, making it a lot more difficult to have his revenge, but that wasn't the worrying part.

No, the worrying part was he was starting to wonder about what he was doing. It had seemed so clear before, after the Minister's newspaper exposed Peter's survival. He would escape, find Peter, eat him (or at least chew him to pieces if not actually swallow him, since that would be disgusting on so many levels), and then…

Well that was the problem really, 'and then'. He vaguely recalled thoughts about going to his grave happy, or growing wings and flying off to a castle in the sky filled with big-breasted pixies or something, but he was pretty sure a lot of that had to do with the strange molds he used to lick off the walls of his cell after staying as Padfoot for a bit too long.

Now that he had spent a fair bit of time away from the Dementors, and the tasty mold, the plan no longer seemed all that viable. Hell, he was starting to consider the possibility that sitting around in the forbidden forest all day plotting revenge while cleaning his personal bits with his tongue just might not be the most productive use of his time when half of the magical world was actively hunting him.

Maybe he should be working out a way to truly escape, to get out of Britain and off to somewhere where bands of Dementors weren't swarming around hungrily searching to make a tasty snack of his immortal soul.

He had stumbled across the nest of a car a few days ago, a small blue and rather beat up Anglia that was jumping from tree to tree in a reasonably successful attempt to fly. Although it was obviously magical, he could probably capture it and use it to get just about anywhere he wanted to go, especially if it really was learning to fly.

He could even go someplace where he could get a hold of a proper supply of food, instead of the occasional careless things that inhabited the forest, and maybe steal a wand, or even just find a place where he could and take a hot bath and scrub a decade of prison off his skin and feel like a normal wizard again.

Nah – that was crazy talk.

Back to the self cleaning then, while he imagined yet another way to lure the Rat into a bear trap with an anvil hanging above it.

#

Harry's sudden yell startled half of the common room into silence. The other half just ignored him with the same indifference they treated everything unusual or outright weird in the magical world, which was pretty much everything really.

"Harry? Are you okay?" asked Susan out of politeness.

Harry blinked a few times and looked around, looking quite dazed.

"Harry?" Susan asked again, actually getting concerned.

Susan and a few other Puffs had been casually sitting around chatting, with Harry in his usual chair, either sleeping or choosing not to take part in the conversation (due to his charmed glasses it was usually hard to tell, and he never seemed to grasp the idea it was rude to fall asleep like that, no matter how many times people told him), when the suddenly outburst from him caught them by all by surprise.

"Did I say anything?" he asked after a few more confused looking moments.

"What?"

"Did I say anything, when I woke up? Did I talk?"

"Er, no. You just yelled," answered Hannah.

"Scared the crap outta me," say Justin, getting up from where he had fallen out of his chair.

"Yelled? No words? Nothing mystical or profound?"

"No mate, just an unholy yell," said Ernie, using his wand to clean the drink he spilled at Harry's outburst off his robes.

"Damn it," swore Harry.

"Was it a nightmare?" asked Susan, still looking concerned.

"What? No," said Harry distractedly. "I was practising."

"Practising what? To scare the hell out of people?" asked Justin, a bit resentfully. "Congrats, it worked."

"No, smart-arse. I was practicing for Divination."

An eerie silence enveloped the small group.

"What?" Harry asked, feeling uncomfortable at having a group of people staring at him but not saying anything.

"We are waiting for the explanation," said Susan. "Since we all know you don't take any class except charms seriously, there is no way you were actually practising some sort of divination."

"Well, no," agreed Harry. "I wasn't actually practising Divination as such. I was practising FOR divination."

"Come on," said Justin after a few more expectation filled silent moments. "Tell. You owe us for scaring a year out of me."

"Yeah. If you have a scam going I want in," agreed Ernie. "That class is driving me batty."

"It's a load of bunk," said Susan. "But you still have to learn all of the technical side of it to pass- like what card means what and how they affect each other's meanings."

"True," said Harry. "But-"

"Oh Merlin, here it comes," said Hannah, wondering if putting her fingers into her ears might spare the mental pain Harry's explanation was likely to cause.

"Some seers sort of black-out, or go into a trance, and give their prophecies that way. I figured if I can fake that a few times, then Hippy-lady will leave me alone and I can snooze my way through her class without interruption."

"That's not bad," admitted Ernie after a mere moment of thought. "So how are you going to do it?"

"I've been trying a sort of post hypnotic suggestion thing, but it's obviously not working," said Harry.

"It's doing something," said Justin. "I'll testify you don't wake up like that normally."

"Yeah, but I need to fake making a prophecy, so I need words, or word-like sounds at least, to be coming out when I wake up."

"That could be dangerous," said Susan. "Or embarrassing. What if you say something really didn't want to?"

"What, like, 'Oh, Professor Lockhart, I love you!" laughed Hannah, looking directly at a very unamused Susan.

"If you tell that story one more time –"

"I'll give you ten chocolate frogs," said Justin.

"Don't do it Hannah," warned Susan menacingly.

"I'll add five," said Ernie, grinning like a loon.

"And I'll wash your clothes for a week," said Harry, to the surprise of everyone.

"Well," he said, squirming under their scrutiny. "I'll have your clothes washed for a week, although you might have to wait until I can find another house elf. The last one is apparently undergoing training for something called counter-insurrection or something."

"If you tell them, I'll never talk to you again," threatened Susan, staring at Hannah.

Hannah was obviously torn. The temptation of embarrassing her friend and the lure of the bribes were warring with her desire not to really hurt Sue, and the worry of retaliation.

"Just finish your story first, Harry," she said, delaying the decision.

"Oh, well, yeah. Okay. That's it basically. I've got a few other things to try, including a curse that might work, but really I just want to be able to wake up suddenly and say a bunch of random words. Then I can pretend I don't know anything about it, but Hippy-lady will love me and never bother me while I am in my sleep-I mean trance state."

"How the hell can you sleep in there with all that smoke?" asked Hannah. "It makes my eyes burn."

"Hey you can sleep in History of Magic with a bloody ghost standing in front of you – that makes my heart burn."

"That's jealousy, Harry, not something physical," explained Susan.

"Whatever, it's just not fair," said Harry darkly, before brightening up a bit. "Actually, that's given me a great idea – thanks."

"You're welcome, I think," said Susan. "Now what's this curse you mentioned? I don't think using a curse is a good idea."

"Yeah I'm a bit wary about it, after all the trouble I had with that deafness one last year, but it sounds like it might be useful. It apparently makes you sprout words at random. I figure I might be able to get it onto a ring or something that I can wear while I am asleep and have it activate when I wake up. Then I can take the ring off and it will stop."

"That sounds like a strange sort of curse. I've never heard of one like that before. What's it called?"

"It's got some weird French bloke's name; Torturer, or Tarratellgo, or something," said Harry. "I've written it down somewhere along with the name of the book in the restricted section with it in. I got it from a seventh year Muggleborn."

"Torturer? That does not sound good at all," said Hannah.

"No way would I use a curse on myself created by a feller named Torturer," agreed Ernie.

After a moment of intense concentration, Justin suddenly started smiling.

"Torturer?" he asked. "Makes you yell out things at random? Harry, this curse, it would be called Tourette would it?"

"Yeah, that's it!" said Harry. "Tourette. Why are you smiling?"

Justin briefly considered explaining to Harry what the hell Tourette's Syndrome was, but then had second thoughts. After all, if Harry was too lazy to find out about it himself, he really did deserve the fallout, and besides, it would be damn funny.

"No reason," he said, trying and failing to keep the smile off his face.

#

Padfoot's sensitive nose probed the well concealed entrance to the tunnel carefully. A dank smell of sewerage and stale air wafter up from the small opening, but he didn't smell anything threatening.

The prospect of having a lair out of the elements was a huge attraction, especially since the last lot of mushrooms he had eaten might not have been what he thought they were and his stomach and head were doing some weird things, so he ignored the faint odour of old blood and pushed into the tunnel.

It wasn't like this would be the first tunnel he had ever found under Hogwarts. Centuries of trying to lock students in at night were bound to make for various ingenious escape routes, and tunnels were a fairly obvious one. It was a bit unusual to have them pop out in the forest, but simple wards could keep most animals out.

In the almost absolute blackness, even his sensitive eyes found it hard to see, but he pushed on, going deeper and deeper until he was sure he was under the Black lake. Slowly the tunnel expanded and faint light shown from the distance.

Creeping quietly on his belly, Sirius moved closer to the end, a faint, unrecognisable noise echoing back to him. As he neared, he could see the tunnel he was in emptied out into a larger chamber, and something was moving.

Slowly he peeked out to look into the chamber. It took a few moments to understand what he was seeing, and not because his eyes had to adjust to the dim light several torches around the room were giving off.

His entry ended high up on the wall of a very large cavern that had many other openings randomly spread over the place. Statues, possibly of snakes, stood in rows in the darkness, although some had fallen and now lay on the ground. A massive face was carved into a wall near Sirius, and an enormous snake's corpse, at least two dozen metres long, lay rotting on the floor of the chamber.

But that wasn't the strangest part. No, the really strange thing was the half-dressed figure of a student trying to tear pieces of skin off the huge snake with his bare hands, apparently to finish dressing itself, since its clothes were mostly made out of skin already.

For a second, the hunched figure stopped moving, slowly turning its face towards where Sirius was hiding. The resemblance to James Potter struck Sirius first, but the wide open, 'O' shaped mouth and staring eyes quickly broke that illusion and Sirius froze, his mind valiantly trying to make sense of what he was seeing.

Finally it came up with an answer that fit his distorted, poisoned mushroom affected view of the world.

"Harry?" he asked switching back to human form. "Is that you, Harry?"

Larry didn't move.

"Harry!" yelled Sirius recklessly climbing down and leaping forward to envelope the former clothes store mannequin in a hug; his mind made up. "Thank god I found you. I'm Sirius, I'm your god father. Don't believe all the stories – I may have been responsible for your parents' death but I didn't betray them to Voldemort – it was Peter. Oh, Harry, there is so much I need to tell you, and show you. We are going to have such fun together."

Larry didn't react, not having any clue on what to do to a strange man hugging him, or anybody hugging him for that matter, but as Sirius continued to babble and hug him, Larry's mouth slowly closed, bending slightly at the corners.


	4. Chapter 4 - Movie not so Magic

"Hey Harry, what's that?"

"It's the new memory-sphere thing Lockhart and I came up with," said Harry, lifting the glass ball out of its container and frowning at it. Hedwig's ungainly crash landing into his breakfast did not break, it luckily, but some egg had seeped through the packaging and was still sticking to it, despite a less than vigorous wiping. "It's meant to be the first one of hopefully a large and profitable range of them."

"What's it do?"

"Well I just wanted to record somebody reading out our textbooks, so that I didn't have to actually do the reading. Smiley reckons he could get an actual lesson recorded and sell them. The deal was I'd get a free copy and few sickles for each one sold. This is meant to be on Divination, but I can't get it to work."

"What's the letter? Does it say how to work it?"

"Oh Smiley wrote something about finding a new marketing angle and some specialty suppliers or something, but he still managed to get a lesson recorded. I didn't bother reading it all the way through."

"Here let me have a look. Okay, hold it in your hand and push some magic through, saying the words 'Occulus revealeo'."

"Ah!" said Harry and the mist started swirling inside the previously clear ball. "I can see it now. Hear it too. That's really annoying music, sounds a bit like those old movies Vernon used to watch late at night-"

"Hey, Harry, Lockhart didn't write it's about divination, he wrote it's called Divine Action, and look at the names of these other 'courses': Ass-tronomy, Muggle Studs, Wrist-mancy – what the hell kind of course is this?"

"Um," said Harry, unblinking staring into the ball, his face going bright red.

"Oh. Oh! It's not school work, is it?"

"Well, it is, sort of, I mean she seems to be talking about that same stuff, but, er, well-."

"It's, er, a bit more interesting, isn't it?"

"Yep. Oh boy, yeah."

"You are going to share it, aren't you, mate? You know, to help us improve our grades."

"Maybe," answered Harry absently, his eyes not moving from the sphere. "Once, I've, er, studied it. Yeah, studied it. That's it… Er, I'll be in my bunk."

#

"Now, then," said Professor Lupin, beckoning the class toward the end of the room, where there was nothing but an old wardrobe the teachers kept their spare robes in. As he got close to it, the wardrobe gave a sudden wobble, banging off the wall.

"Nothing to worry about," said the Professor. "There's a Boggart in there. A Boggart is a shape shifter that takes the form it thinks will frighten you the most."

Lupin paused as a few of Harry's classmates sniggered.

"Ah, yes, you've probably already heard from the Gryffindors about Neville's Boggart eh? Good to see the Hogwarts rumour mill still exceeds the speed of magic. Now then, spread out and let's practice the spell."

"What happened?" Harry whispered to Susan as they began repeating the incantation and practicing the wand movements while the Professor continued his lecture.

"Apparently Neville is terrified of Professor Snape," said Susan.

"Understandable," agreed Harry, still not seeing the funny side.

"When you say the spell, it forces the Boggart to take the form you envision, so you are no longer scared of it," she giggled. "Professor Lupin had Neville imagine it dressed up in his grandmother's clothes."

"That's not funny," said Harry going pale. "It's horrible."

"Right then," called Lupin, apparently satisfied with their chaotic efforts. "Line up and we'll all have a go."

It took a moment for the usual pushing and shoving to resolve itself into a ragged line, and then each of them took a shot at facing their ultimate fear with Lupin putting it back inside the wardrobe between turns.

"On the count of three," said Professor Lupin as it came to Harry's turn. "One — two — three — now!"

The wardrobe burst open once again, but nothing immediate came out. Harry waited nervously as the class suddenly went silent in expectation.

The moment dragged on.

Then it dragged on some more.

It started getting ridiculous.

Finally Lupin took a step towards the wardrobe, his own wand raised readiness. Still nothing came out.

Harry tried to swallow, his throat feeling so dry he was no longer sure he could say the spell.

Lupin slowly walked all the way over to the empty door, then cautiously peered in.

"Hmm," he said, leaning inside and poking at something with his wand. "Er, well, yes. Okay then."

"Right, class," he said, standing back up and closing the door behind him. "It looks like this has all been a bit too much for our Boggart, so unfortunately that's the end of the lesson today."

Moans of disappointment and confusion greeted the Professor's announcement.

"Five points to each of you who faced the Boggart. For homework I want you all to read the chapter on Boggarts and summarise it for me," he said cheerfully. "Now, off you go."

Everybody piled out of the room talking excitedly, except Harry, who waited, watching Lupin reopen the cupboard to peer back inside.

"What happened?" asked Harry, his voice horse.

"Oh, Harry," said Lupin jumping back from the wardrobe. "I didn't see you there."

"What happened?" repeated Harry.

"Nothing to worry about," said Lupin, less than convincingly. "He just got a bit worn out I suspect."

Harry's sceptical look must have made the professor feel a bit guilty about his lie.

"Harry, do you know what your greatest fear is?" Lupin asked.

"No idea," said Harry, a million things running through his mind despite his ingrained habit of not thinking about things that didn't matter.

"I was rather worried it was going to be Voldemort," admitted Lupin, "Which would have been bad, especially for the rest of your classmates, but it seems whatever you fear is so bad it caused the Boggart to curl up and die."

Harry felt a knife of dread plunge into his heart and involuntarily took a step backwards.

"It's okay," reassured Lupin upon seeing Harry's stricken face. "I'm sure it was just confused facing so many different fears-"

"No," interrupted Harry, forcing himself to calm down. "It's not that. I know what happened."

"Really?" asked the Professor his curiosity getting the better of him.

"Yeah," said Harry quietly. "The effort of keeping his heart beating was too much, so he just let it stop."

"Oh, Harry," whispered Lupin. "You aren't really that lazy, you know. You try far too hard."

"Yeah, I know," said Harry. "That's why. That's not going to happen to me."

Lupin watched Harry carefully for a moment, both of them deep in thought.

"I guess not," the professor said suddenly, his raised voice startling Harry. "In fact, I think you are going to have to try this again, next week after class. I'll find another Boggart and we'll work on it until you can cast the spell with barely any effort at all.

Harry looked surprised, but then smiled.

"That would be horrible," he said.

"Excellent," said Lupin cheerfully. "I'll let you know exactly when once I find another Boggart, one that is a little less insightful this time. Now, off you go."

Harry nodded thankfully at the Professor and left the room, automatically heading for a shortcut that would let him catch up to his friends without having to hurry.

Behind him, Lupin poked thoughtfully at the dead Boggart with his wand.

#

"Great Harry Potters, sirs, we is being sorry sirs, but we are needing you," said the elf Harry was fairly certain had been called Tolly but was now referred to as "Brigadeary Major" or something. It was wearing a rather battered looking colander on his head that Harry really didn't want to think about, but couldn't help.

Harry had dropped by the kitchen on his way to the common rooms to snag a bite to eat and see if he could convince an elf to wash Hannah's clothes for a week so she would tell Sue's secret, but was quickly surrounded by elves.

"Well that's great because I need you guys too," said Harry, making a grab for a muffin sitting on an over-stacked tray on a side bench. "It's been hell around here without you. What have you been doing?"

"We's been fighting a wicked, clever enemy," answered the Brigadier Major of the Elf Retaliation and Control Army.

"What? But I left Voldemort pickled in a jar!" said Harry. "He hasn't escaped has he?"

The elves hissed as Harry said Voldemort.

"No, great Harry potter sirs," said the Brigadier. "He Who Must Not Be Named is still in Headmaster Dumbledore sir's office, on the Shelf No Elf Must Clean. Headmaster Dumbledore sirs takes him down and gives him a good shake every now and then. No, sirs, the enemy we fight messes up clean rooms, knocks things off shelfs, and eats anything left out."

"What, like students?" asked Harry through a mouthful of delicious chocolate muffin, ignoring the fact he really wanted to know why Beardy would shake the Dark Lord's prison, and of there was some way he could have a go.

"No!" exclaimed the elf, shocked that Harry could even suggest such a thing. "Studenties be good boys and girlses, learning important things, They's meant to be messy and clumsy, spilling juices, and leaving sticky nasty messes all over. No, these be evil things, nasty things not behaving the way they should be! They should be sitting on shelves quietly waiting for studenties to come opens them up and reads them, not rushing about, making messes and breeding like drunk elves. They be all kinds of wrong!"

"Er, sitting on shelves? Open them up and read them? You wouldn't be talking about books now would you?" asked Harry, trying valiantly to understand what was going on. "Because I don't particularly like books either, but calling them evil is stretching the dislike a bit far. Not even the stupid Hogwarts: a History is actually evil – at least I don't think it is, but since I've never read it-"

"These not be normal books!" yelled the elf. "These be books of death, with nasty, big, pointy teeth!"

It then put its hand in front of its mouth facing outwards, fingers curled to simulate what Harry supposed were meant to be terrifying teeth.

"Yes, well, thank you for the overly dramatic performance," said Harry politely, "but the only books I know of that have teeth are the Monster Book of Monsters, and you can put them to sleep pretty easily just by stroking the spine-"

"Strokes the spines?"

"Yes, just rub it. They go all quite and placid for ages. Can do what you like with them after that – mind you, could have saved a few people some nasty bruises and bites if we'd all been told earlier, especially poor Nev. His lost two uniforms to those buggers, and he was wearing one at the time! Lucky he had his steel chastity belt on I reckon, or it could have been really nasty!"

An excited murmur swept through the elves packed into the kitchen.

"Harry potter sir is the greatest wizard ever!" yelled an elf loudly, scaring Harry enough that he almost dropped the remains of his muffin. "He's has saved us! He be giving us the secrets to defeating the great scourge of the lower kitchens!"

"Saved us, again!" chorused all the elves in the kitchen, their cries spreading outward and turning into cheers and other outbursts of joy.

"If there's be anything we's can be doing for yous Harry Potter sir, you just be askings," said the original elf.

"Well actually," began Harry.

For a moment Harry felt a bit guilty, but it passed quickly; a product of long practice.

#

Twitchy struggled not to scratch at the itchiness of the black-dyed mop sitting awkwardly on his head. He had fought long and hard against many elves to earn the right to it, and he wasn't going to let the great Harry Potter sirs down by scratching like a monkey.

Besides, he was terribly interested in the old ghost hovering at the front of the class, and the last thing he wanted was to be noticed and possibly sent away.

"And although the Flame-Freezing Charm was particularly effective at negating any and all damage the Muggles tried to inflict with their bon-fires-" continued the Professor, "it became fairly obvious early on that a lack of planning often resulted in having their hands tied before being able to cast the spell and that would lead to rather unfortunate results."

Yes, all in all, this was well worth the extra missing teeth and large bruise he now sported. He really didn't understand why the Great Harry Potter sir had arranged for the switch, but he was ever so grateful.

#

"This sucks," said Harry, slamming the Muggle studies text book onto the table.

"What's up?" asked Ernie, secretly grateful for an excuse to stop for a break.

"This," said Harry, waving his hand over the collections of books and scrolls piled up in front of them. "Muggle studies was supposed to be an easy pass, but this is ridiculous."

"But you're Muggle raised, shouldn't you already know all of this?" asked Ernie.

"I would, if it's wasn't totally wrong," said Harry.

"Well I think it is fascinating," said Hermione. "It's intriguing to see how wizards view the Muggle world."

"Confusing and a load of rubbish you mean," said Harry.

"It's a perfect opportunity to learn how a different culture views things," said Hermione.

"It's a waste of time and energy," contradicted Harry. "None of it is even slightly useful, and since it is all ass-backwards, or at least a hundred years out of date, I have to learn it in order to pass, and that is just not going to cut it - I might as well be doing a real subject that at least has some practical application."

"Well you could always drop it and actually try to pass your other electives," suggested Hermione smugly.

Harry gave her a disgusted look.

"Yes, but that's not how it should be," he said. "Look, as Muggle born and raised, aren't you at least slightly insulted at the view Wizards have of Muggles? I mean come on, they still think we sit in dark rooms watching black and white films without sound and never travel more than a few miles from the place we are born! We are taught more accurately about strange half-mythical animals than we are about the rest of the human race."

"I can see it's a bit old, but surely it's not that bad," said Ernie. "I mean everybody knows your cinemas have sound now, and every home probably has a wireless of course."

"See what I mean?" Harry asked Hermione pointedly.

"Nevertheless, there is not much that you can do about it," said Hermione. "This is what they expect you to know, so if you want your grade, you'll just have to learn it."

Harry slumped back in his chair, an angry scowl on his normally placid features as he watched his easy pass slipping away right before his eyes.

He jammed his hands into his pockets and stared at the pile of books while Hermione and Ernie went back to work on the assignment. There had to be a way to make this easy. Maybe he could apply for some sort of exemption based on the fact he was Muggle raised - nah, others would be doing that if it were possible.

Idly he played with the latest memory spheres from Smiley, rolling them around in his hand in a soothing routine as an idea began to percolate.

"Hermione, if you had to pick a movie or two to show a reasonably open minded but ignorant Pureblood like Ern here-"

"Oi!" protested Ernie.

"- what the Muggle world is really like, what would you choose?" he asked.

"You'll never get permission to take a class of wizards into a cinema," said Hermione, "and with good reason too. Can you imagine the chaos they would cause blundering around the city?"

"Hey, come on now," said Ernie looking a bit hurt by the conversation.

"No," agreed Harry, "but what about if I can get the cinema to come here?"

"Electricity doesn't always work properly in magically saturated areas," argued Hermione. "Modern projectors are quite sophisticated you know, and TVs will have no hope."

"Oh I realise that," said Harry, smiling as he took one of the now notorious spheres from his pocket and held it for her to see.

Hermione's eyes widened.

#

Susan Bones paused at the door of the classroom. Last year she had reluctantly come to accept seeing that horrible mannequin, Larry, sitting in History of Magic in Harry's place. This year had been better, with Harry unable to sleep meaning there was at least one other person awake to keep her company during the long hours they were forced to sit in the class.

She needed that company in order to stay awake, but her Aunty had time and again insisted every subject needed to be treated with the utmost respect and she had foolishly promised to do her best in even this pointless class.

At least that had been the case until a couple of weeks ago when Harry had somehow convinced a House Elf to take his place. How the teacher, ghost though he was, failed to see anything amiss when his arguably most famous student ever was replaced by an elf wearing a black mop on his misshapen head and with glasses drawn on his face in grease paint, she did not understand.

Ignoring students who were obviously not paying attention, or even sleeping was one thing, but a student being replaced by a creature not even of the same species was ludicrous, even if it did appear to be a lot more interested than any of the real students ever were.

When Justin had somehow managed to coerce a second elf to take his place it started getting silly.

Still, the scene in front of her was a whole new level of absurd.

There wasn't one elf in the class, or two, or even five. Every single student was missing, and in their place were a multitude of elves, more than there were students normally, all wearing the most ridiculous substitutes for hair, including one who had apparently decided a full grown hedge was a decent hairdo.

Well, maybe, if it was meant to be Hermione...

Anyway, now Susan faced a dilemma. There was no way she was going to sit in that room with all those strange elves, but she had made a promise.

"Just go the library," said a voice behind her. "That's what I plan to do, eventually."

"Harry!" said she, startled by his sudden appearance. "What?"

"I can learn far more by reading the books than I can in that room listening to old Ghosty go on and on, and quite frankly, those elves give me the willies. There is something very wrong with them," answered Harry.

"That's a bit mean," said Susan. "I thought they were your friends and were doing you a favour?"

"One of them was doing me a favour because I had helped them out, but the rest have made deals with Ern and the others all by themselves," he answered peering around her into the room. "But it's not that that makes me worried; apparently, they like it – the classes that is. I mean really like it, love even."

While she didn't want to agree, there was no arguing with that. Liking Binns' classes was definitely a bit too strange - weird even.

"You know, Hermione is not going to be happy," she said after a moment.

"What, because we are getting out of class?"

"No, because it looks like an elf is using her for a model, and it is not flattering."

Harry poked his head around her and looked further into the room.

"Oh, bugger. I see what you mean, but hey, it wasn't my idea. At least I don't think it was, but I suppose it's possible."

"You know she is not going to believe you, one way or the other," said Sue, enjoying watching Harry squirm. "She is going to hound you for weeks about this."

Harry sighed in defeat.

"So what's it going to take?" he asked. "For you to keep quiet, that is."

He knew he should have asked the elves for something a bit more subtle, but subtle really wasn't one of his strong points.

#

"Harry, Harry, can you hear me? Wake up, Harry. Come, on Buddy."

Harry weakly tried to open his leaden eye, only to be almost blinded by light when he finally managed to crack them open. Every inch of his body ached, and it felt like a drunken elephant had been set lose inside his skull to run amok.

"Wasffd?" he asked, his mouth refusing to properly form words.

"You fell off you broom, during the match," said a voice.

"Bullssjhhfft," he denied.

"It's true," insisted a different voice. "You were up really high when the Dementors came in and they must have overwhelmed you or something because the next thing we know, you were falling. Luckily Dumbledore was there or you would have been squished flat."

"It was very scary," said a third voice Harry decided sounded like Hannah.

"Not as scary as seeing Dumbledore nearly lose it," said Cedric, a slight shudder in his voice. "I thought he was going to blow his stack for a while there."

A round of murmurs agreed as Harry forced his eyes to open again.

He was in the hospital on one of the beds, still in his Quidditch gear and surrounded by what looked like the whole team, plus a couple of extras. They were all soaking wet.

Slowly memories of the horrific game against Gryffindor came back to him. Cedric was playing one of the other positions for some reason Harry never bothered to figure out, so he had been dragged off the reserve bench yet again and roped into playing seeker.

Why they had forced him to play in weather better suited to sitting inside near a warm fire he would never know, but insist they had, with strict instructions to not end the game until they were at least sixty points ahead.

He had tried to stay where he was told to patrol for the snitch, but it had just gotten too ridiculous. Even with his robes enchanted with multiple spells to keep water and cold away, he was quickly soaked and miserable, so he made possibly the worst decision ever.

"Not 'mentors," he mumbled after taking a grateful drink from a cup offered to him by a very concerned looking Han.

"What?" she asked.

"Not Dementors," he repeated slowly and painfully.

"What, did somebody knock you off?" demanded Cedric.

"No," said Harry, slowly regaining strength enough to prop himself up slightly on his elbows. "I er, passed out."

"What from?"

"Lack of air I think."

A confused silence greeted him.

"You see, I didn't want to be in the storm anymore," he said, sheepishly. "So I started flying up higher, trying to get above it. I figured it would be calmer and easier to fly up there, so I could just nick back down every now and then to check the score."

"Fly above the storm? Are you completely bonkers?"

"Apparently so," he answered sadly sinking back down. "I was only out for a second, but the broom shut off and I started falling. I reckon I could have gotten it back under control, but then I hit the Dementors."

"I heard they got over excited by all the emotions and couldn't help themselves," said somebody Harry couldn't see.

"Yeah, well all I know is they have pretty hard heads," said Harry. "And they are bony as hell. I reckon the second one I smashed into was carrying a couple of bricks in its pockets or something, because he did some serious damage."

Another silence reigned.

"When you said 'hit the Dementors', you know I didn't think you meant you actually touched them," said Malcom, one of the chasers.

"Don't say it like that," said Maxine the beater. "You make that sound dirty."

"Get your mind out of the gutter," said Heidi, the other chaser.

For a moment Harry wondered if some brain damage had occurred, since he was recalling everybody's full names for a change, but then he figured "Why worry about it?" and just went with the flow.

"Anyway, I think you must be the only person I have ever heard of ever actually getting that close to one-"

"Five, I think, I wasn't really counting after the second one-" Harry corrected.

"-And live to tell the tale."

"I wouldn't be going too close to them any time soon," warned Malcom. "They might hold a grudge."

"Or want you to touch them again," added Max.

"Gutter!" yelled Heidi.

"At any rate, flying that high was pretty stupid," said Cedric. "And you cost us the game."

"What? Why?" demanded Harry, finding himself oddly upset at the thought of losing his first game ever.

Again the spectre of brain damage raised itself in his mind, but then it too was shrugged off 'as not important enough to bother thinking much about'.

"After the Dementors flooded the pitch, Madam Hooch called the game, and since the Gryffindors were ten point ahead and nobody could find the snitch-"

"Oh, here it is," said Harry, reaching into a pocket of his uniform to withdrawn the small winged ball. "It was all cold and lonely so I was holding onto it until we got the points you wanted.

"Doesn't that mean Hooch has to give us the points and the win?" he asked with mock innocence.

For the third time, silence greeted him, but this one he felt quite smug about.

#

"On the count of three," said Professor Lupin. "One — two — three — now!"

Red sparks leaped from his wand, flinging the trunk lid open.

Professor Snape, dressed in Neville's grandmother's clothes, stepped out.

"Riddikulus! Riddikulus! Riddikulus!" screamed Harry, waving his wand frantically.

#


	5. Chapter 5 - Future Imperfect

_So almost three years after writing the first part of Hufflepuff!Harry's third year, here is the last chapter. Let's hope it doesn't take four years for year four._

_Merry Christmas._

#

"We's be winnings the war, buts its taking too longs," said the 'Brigadeary Major' to the assembled elves. "Harry potter sir –"

At the sound of Harry's name a cheer broke out interrupting him.

"He gaves us the secrets of how to beat nasty booksies one at a time, but at this rate, we nots be finished before the end of the years feast!" he cried over the still cheering crowd.

The cheers died abruptly and a panicked murmur started to grow.

"Brigadeary Major, I's has an idea," called the elf who had fought his way to top to win the right of taking Harry's place in History of Magic. "We's can use tacticses!"

"Tacticses?" asked the Brigadeary Major.

"We's been learning them in Professor Binns's classes," answered the elf. "Goblins and wizards uses them against each other, and we've been learning them!"

A mutter of agreement rose around him as other elves from Binn's classes realised they had indeed been getting lessons in war craft and battle

"Great Harry Potter sirs must have known!" yelled another elf. "That's why hes be sending us to classes, giving up his own place so we can learn what we needs to know."

"And he must have convinced his friends to also give up their places!" screamed another, getting the jump on any other elf.

"Great Harry Potter sirs is truly great!" yelled yet another elf who really wanted to yell out something but had not thought of anything worthy until now.

The cheering went on for quite a while longer after that.

#

"On the count of three," said Professor Lupin. "One — two — three — now!"

Red sparks leaped from his wand, flinging the trunk lid open.

A stunningly gorgeous creature stepped out of the trunk, her long flowing locks draping over magnificent shoulders onto a perfectly proportioned breast. Tight, satin robes hugged her slender waist above curvaceous hips and down her long, long legs.

A hint of familiarity in her face distracted Harry, so he did not hear her first words.

"Harry," she repeated, her voice low and smooth as silk. "I know you've had a hard day at work, and dinner was terrific, but once you finish the dishes, can you take out the garbage and then put the kids to bed please?"

"Riddikulus! Riddikulus! Riddikulus!" screamed Harry, waving his wand frantically.

#

"Close your mouth Harry," said Sirius, chewing on a rather over cooked portion of fried Basilisk. "I know it's an impressive story, but it isn't that jaw dropping, not until I get to the end, that it."

He tried stewing it, grilling it, sautéing it, and even made a lovely magic mushroom sauce to go with it, but it still tasted like chicken, if that chicken had been eaten by a snake that is.

Still, it was free and plentiful, and those were the two criteria Sirius most valued in his food.

"Sure you don't want some?" he asked offering a large chunck to Larry.

The golem shook its head slowly, mouth still wide open in its usual pose. Not that Sirius noticed anyway.

"Yeah, I guess it's not a patch on those fabulous meals you are getting in the main hall, are they? You lucky bugger."

The golem remained silent, not at all worried that its unasked for companion was so delusional that he had never noticed Larry was with it all the time and never left, or slept, or went to the bathroom.

"So anyway, there we were, knee deep in chocolate sauce and about to set fire to the marshmallows when-" Sirius suddenly froze, staring at something behind Larry.

Larry didn't bother turning. It grabbed one of the less disfigured knives Sirius transfigured using the mostly broken wand from inside the dead Basilisk, and tossed it. The knife flew a wobbly but direct flight and skewered an unfortunate rat, killing it instantly.

"You are getting really good at that," complimented Sirius as he came out of his trance-like state.

Larry remained silent. The man went even crazier whenever a rat showed up, but killing them quickly was usually preferable to seeing the dog running around trying to catch them.

Usually.

#

"On the count of three," said Professor Lupin. "One — two — three — now!"

Red sparks leaped from his wand, flinging the trunk lid open.

Professor Sprout stepped from the trunk, a gleaming badge in her hand.

"Congratulations, Harry," she said, holding out what Harry could now clearly see was the Quidditch captain's badge. "Now you can practice every day!"

"Riddikulus! Riddikulus! Riddikulus!" screamed Harry, waving his wand frantically.

#

"Hermione, I can't help noticing you have either managed to smuggle a previously unknown identical twin into the school, have cloned yourself, or are somehow managing to be in two places at once," said Harry taking a seat next to his friend at the Gryffindor table.

Caught off guard, Hermione spluttered into her morning juice.

"What's that?" asked Ron from the other side of the table, perking up suddenly as Harry mentioned the possibility of a twin Hermione.

"Haven't you noticed that she is in every single class, even when they are on at the same time?" asked Harry.

"I don't know what you are talking about!" said Hermione.

"Or that she is sometimes completely out of sorts and not sure what time of the day it is?" continued Harry, sneaking a piece of toast off Hermione's plate.

"Hey, get your own," protested Hermione slapping at Harry's hand as it retreated with her breakfast.

"But yours is already buttered," said Harry munching happily on the stolen food.

"What is he talking about? Do you have a twin?" asked Ron, unwilling to leave the subject alone despite Hermione's rather lame attempt at supposedly not knowing what was going on.

"Nothing," said Hermione, shooting Harry a warning glance that promised dire consequences.

"You know, one of the best things about going to a school is the access to all the answers you could ever want, if you just know where to look, or in this case, who to ask," said Harry.

"Harry," warned Hermione trying, but failing to sound more menacing.

"Hermione here has somehow managed to get a hold of -"

"Stop!" said Hermione, starting to panic. "I've promised not to tell."

"And you should keep that promise," agreed Harry happily. "I however, simply had to ask a couple the upper years how somebody could be in two or more places at the same time, and was right surprised to find out how many different ways there are! Of course it was relatively easy to eliminate all of them except one that could easily hang from a necklace much like the one you are currently wearing."

"What do you want, Harry?" said Hermione, her resolve collapsing faster than Neville could fall from a broom.

"Me? Want something?" protested Harry with as much innocence as he could muster, which was actually quite a ot due to the sheer amount of practice he had put into developing that particular faking skill.

"You always want something," answered Hermione darkly. "It's one of your less endearing traits."

"Well yes, I agree, but in this case, I think you'll find me most amiable. You see, I want to you stop using it every day."

"I am not going to lend it to you," she said. "You'd just abuse it to get a few more hours sleep or something."

"Great idea, but no, the last thing I want is to be stuck in school even a second longer than is absolutely necessary," said Harry. "No, I want you to cut back on how much you are doubling up."

Hermione's attitude and posture changed from despondent to outraged, and even slightly horrified.

For a moment, Harry marvelled at her ability to change moods, but decided it was probably just a girl thing, since he had noticed a lot of girls this year acting a bit 'schizo', as Justin so eloquently put it. Then it again, it likely had more to do with the current problem he was addressing.

"Why?" she demanded. "It's not hurting anybody or causing you any extra work or anything, so it really doesn't have anything to do with you."

"It's bad for you. You are losing track of yourself and starting to make some big mistakes," he explained, not at all perturbed by her anger.

"I am not," denied Hermione, looking even more outraged.

"Really, then why weren't you in Muggle studies this morning?" he challenged smugly.

For a moment Hermione looked confused, then terrified.

"Oh no," she said, quickly gathering her bag and racing away from the table in a mad whirlwind of almost uncontrolled activity that frankly exhausted Harry just watching it.

"What the hell was all that about," asked Ron, feeling left out and confused, and not entirely sure whether he should be defending Hermione or siding with Harry. "We haven't even started classes today."

"Hermione has a time-turner and is using it in order to get to all of her classes and do all of her work," said Harry. "She's being over doing it and has lost track of herself a few times."

"A time-turner, blimey," said Ron with a hint of awe. "That's dangerous magic that is."

"Apparently so," agreed Harry, helping himself to the rest of Hermione's abandoned breakfast.

"So how did you really figure it all out and why did you lie to her about missing a class?" asked Ron.

"Well it simple really, she is so mixed up that she will try to go back a few hours, which gets her even more confused. I found her having a bit of a nervous breakdown an hour ago outside the Ancient runes class, and she is now sitting in the infirmary having an enforced rest, courtesy of Flo."

"So she had a breakdown because you tricked her?" asked Ron, getting slightly angry.

"No, I tricked her because she had a breakdown and told me everything, including how I tricked her," said Harry.

Ron looked confused for a moment as he thought it through, before resorting to what most teenage boys would do in a situation like this.

"Fair enough," he said with a shrug before returning to his breakfast. "Just so long as she is going to be alright. Pity she doesn't have a twin though."

#

"On the count of three," said Professor Lupin. "One — two — three — now!"

Red sparks leaped from his wand, flinging the trunk lid open.

Professor Trelawney stepped from the trunk, dressed in a 'barely-there' robe Harry distinctly recalled from the Divine-Action memory-sphere 'lessons'.

"Come, dear boy," she rasped throatily. "Let me take you into the great beyond!"

"Riddikulus! Riddikulus! Riddikulus!" screamed Lupin, waving his wand as frantically as Harry.

#

"And this, Harry," said Sirius, pushing the decaying door at the end of the narrow winding tunnel open, "is what the locals now refer to as the Shrieking Shack!"

They stepped into a very run down, dust and cobweb covered room. Broken and rotten furniture and furnishings were littered throughout, and the whole building leaned slightly to one side.

"Yep, it used to be just an average house when Lupin's parents bought it for him to spend his 'weekends away' in, but thanks to the Marauders skill with the lady's it gained a whole new reputation!" proclaimed Sirius proudly.

Larry, obediently following Sirius into the room, looked on with no change in his expression.

"It's true!' insisted Sirius as if Larry had somehow expressed doubt in his claim. "We must have bought every fanciable girl here at least once in our later years, and we had them screaming all right, but not in fear, oh no. It was passion! Yep, we had a system to let each other know if one of us was getting busy, and the rest would keep away over in Hogsmeade where we could hear everything."

Larry's face didn't change, as per usual.

"Well, okay," admitted Sirius shyly. "Maybe not every girl."

Again Larry looked on dispassionately.

"Would you believe half?"

Larry blinked, or rather, the eyes painted on his glasses blinked, which was a reflex Harry had added but rarely worked.

"And I guess most of the screaming was us trying to impress the others by pretending we had a girl here when we didn't really."

Another blink from the glasses – they were on a bit of a roll.

"Except for the girl Peter actually did managed to convince to some in with him that time. Apparently he showed her his thingy and she screamed. Or maybe it was him screaming when she started hexing him. Can't recall now. Anyway, want to hear?"

Sirius didn't wait for an answer, taking a deep breath.

"We live in a castle filled with Ghosts, have a Poltergeist tormenting us between classes, and come into weekly contact with magical animals that would find us a tasty snack," said Harry eyeing the run down shack he had been conned into walking half a mile out of the village to see. "What could possibly be in an old house to make it so terrifying that-"

A noise came from the building in question, a noise so hideous it defied description, although "one of Hagrid's 'cuddlier' pets eating something that did not want to be eaten and was still protesting" was not that far off.

"Bloody hell," he said instinctively drawing his wand. "What in Morgana's name was that?"

Unfortunately there was nobody left to answer as the rest of his classmates made impressive speed exiting the local vicinity.

Harry thought about running, then thought about the fact there had been no rumours of anybody ever having been attacked - and he was armed, then reconsidered his first thoughts as a second hideous scream emanated from the decrepit building.

He had just convinced himself running really wasn't worth the effort when a series of short barking-like howls destroyed his resistance and motivated his legs into new heights of activity.

"Think I might be a bit rusty," said Sirius, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes after he finally managed to get himself a bit under control.

"So, you want to have a go?"

#

"Brigadeary Major, we's be having success, alls the remaining enemies are on the run!"

"Horays!" cheered the elves in attendance in the war room, formerly lower kitchen number 5.

"That's be good news," agreed the old elf. "Where they's be running to?"

"Squadies eight and six are driving many, many bad booksies through corridor E8, sector five," explained the elf, using a polenta stick to move several macaroni pieces across the long kitchen table that was serving as a war map.

Various other kitchen paraphernalia were spread out over the table symbolising the distribution of forces throughout Hogwarts, with lines drawn in sauce to represent walls and other fixtures.

"That's be good," said the old elf looking at the map carefully. "They's be heading right into the Pit of Desolation where we's put all the escaping odd socks to die. With Squadies nine and fourteen pushing their groups into Filchies' dungeon, and Squadies two hundred and Yellow both forcing the last of the bad booksies from Biggy Tower, we's be having no problems containings them all separately – wait, what's that?"

He pointed to a wet spot on the table that extended quite a way across the battlefield.

"That's was the pudding," answered another elf. "We's be needing it for desertsies."

"Desertsies! That was the secret corridor number six seven eight five nine!" yelled the Brigadier.

"It's be desertsies now," said the elf, unconcerned.

"Oh no!" cried another elf, desperate to join in. "They all be escapings."

Cries of woe filled the room.

"There's be too many for us to contain," said the elf who originally bought them the good news.

"Alls not be losting," said the Brigadier as he studied the map intensely.

"If we takes out this-"

"The crumpet?"

"Yes, the wall between this-"

"The jam?"

"-And this-"

"The soup?"

"Then we can makes all the bad booksies go here!" finished the Brigadier major.

"Into the pasta? That be very messy, Brigadeary, and not a good meal either."

"It's be messy, but it's be ours only chance of victory. We's drives them togethers, then drives them outs and push them into, The Beyond!"

"Beyond, beyond, beyond!" chanted the elves excitedly.

#

"Er, Harry? Harry!" called Ernie, shaking harry gently. "Snap out of it mate."

Harry shook himself and automatically went through the 'wake up' process he had gotten out of a strange little book he read. It had helped him develop the ability to occasionally snap almost instantly awake from even the deepest sleep (which was ironic since he had actually been trying to improve his ability to go instantly to sleep).

"What's up?" he asked after barely a second delay as his brain ramped up.

"I think you killed another professor," said Ernie, nodding over his shoulder to where a group had gathered around something.

Harry, heart now racing despite his efforts to remain calm pushed himself up out of his chair and into the ring of people.

Professor Trelawney was sitting on the ground, boggly eyes open even wider than usual, staring off into the distance, her mouth opening and closing wordlessly.

"Nah, she's not dead," said Justin. "Just stunned I think."

"What happened?" asked Harry.

The last thing he remembered was settling in for a nice nap after slipping his cursed ring on.

"You screamed abuse at her when she asked if you were in the great beyond," huffed Susan. "And now we need a new Professor. You are so careless sometimes, Harry."

"I have never heard anybody say things like that before," said a very pale looking Hannah.

"It was brilliant," laughed Justin, who had been stifling outright laughter the whole time.

"Are you sure she hasn't just been over-doing it on the 'spiritual walking water' again?" asked Harry, giving the Professor a gentle shake. "You know, like the time she lectured us on the attributes of the perfect crystal ball and passed out standing up?"

"No, she most definitely was fairly sober," said Susan, still obviously annoyed. "Although she was once again wasting our time going on about ways of reading death omens in a lark's vomit."

"So, did it sound like a prophesy?" asked Harry, not actually sure if he should be concerned or not, since while none of the other 'puffs were particularly enamoured of the batty professor, none of them had caused this. "What I said, I mean. Did it come out like a prediction or a foretelling or something?"

"Not unless Trelawney one day gets a whole lot friendlier with a centaur tribe," said Zach, "in which case, I'm pretty sure she will be more than happy to give you an Exceeds Expectations."

"If she lives through it," added Justin, breaking into laughter again.

"We need to go fetch Madam Pomfrey," said Hannah, who was about the only one showing any real concern for the unpopular teacher. "She might just be in shock, but we can't just leave her, and she is in no condition to have a nice cup of tea and calm down like she usually does."

"I vote we send Harry, since it's his fault, while the rest of us go to lunch early," suggested Zach.

Harry was not impressed with the unity his housemates showed in backing that decision as they swarmed out of the room happily chanting "free period, free period", leaving him behind to care for the incapacitated Professor.

And he had only managed a mere fifteen minute nap!

"Come on then", he said to the now mumbling teacher and taking out his wand.

At least he was going to get some practice levitating a person without having to worry about them suddenly changing their mind and starting to struggle. Hopefully she wouldn't remember if he accidentally bumped her into a few walls on the way there.

#

It was finally time.

Padfoot silently crept up on the unsuspecting rat, utilising every ounce of stealth his canine form could muster, which was quite a lot more than a normal dog, mainly because he had spent years sneaking into and out of various girls bedrooms, and prepared to pounce.

He knew it was Peter.

It had taken months for him to track his former friend, but his nose was incredibly sensitive, and once he had caught a whiff of the traitor while he was sneaking into Hogsmeade to steal more beer, he had been driven like never before.

Finally, after torturous weeks of secretly patrolling the vast Hogwarts grounds, he had found his quarry hiding in the ground keeper's shack, and tonight for some reason, the traitor had made a mistake and ventured outside the relative safety of Hagrid's home.

With a sudden burst of energy Sirius leapt. Peter had no warning before he was swept up into the Grim's jaws.

For a brief moment Sirius considered crunching down and ending it, but Harry's silent reproach when Sirius explained his vendetta made him hesitate.

Of course Larry was actually completely silent almost all of the time, but Sirius never really noticed that and chose to interpret it differently depending on the subject matter at hand, his mood and a raft of other inconsequential factors, as he had always done with most things.

For instance when it came to one of Sirius's favourite subjects, sex, he believed Harry was silent with embarrassment, and sometimes in a bit of awe, as Sirius related his own experiences with the angrier half of humanity.

In this case, he decided that Harry didn't really approve of his plan to become the murderer the world thought he was, but would not stop him if he chose to fulfil one of his prison-born dreams and actually taste vengeance in a very literal way.

So instead of testing the squishiness of his former friend, Sirius simply pinned him between his razor sharp teeth and shook him until he stopped moving, probably from fright, or possibly from the remains of the potent mushroom stew still on Sirius's breath.

Padfoot was about to begin the long trek back to the cave that lead into the depths of the Chamber where he and Harry were camping, when a sudden, all-too-familiar chill made him shudder.

A brace of Dementors floated out of the darkness between trees in front of him.

He tried to growl, but only a weak whimper escaped his mostly full mouth.

The Dementors hesitated, unsure of what to do. Their instincts told them prey was near-by, but they could not properly pinpoint its location.

Sirius felt the drag of the ghastly indrawn breath. It tugged at his soul, trying to pull it from his body. In his mouth, Peter stirred and shivered in fright. The Dementors floated closer.

"Well at least Peter will die too," thought Sirius as his brain began to shut down in fear.

A deep rumbling noise interrupted his morbid thoughts. It quickly grew louder, causing the Dementors to stop their advance in confusion.

Suddenly, a wave of the strange, nastily toothed books Sirius had seen the house elves fighting months before, swept out of the trees not far from the Dementors.

Before the horrid soul suckers could retreat into the sky, the books changed directions and overwhelmed them.

Viscous teeth tore into the frail cloaks and putrid flesh, ripping and tearing in a frenzy of unadulterated rage.

Sirius stood stock still for only split second before turning and putting all four of his legs to very good, if slightly unsteady, use as the books flowed over the Dementors and headed towards him.

#

Lupin felt the moon madness begin to take hold and started panicking. He was such an idiot! Not only did he foolishly rush out to confront his former friends the very second he saw their names on the map he had just confiscated from the Weasley twins, but he had completely forgotten to take the foul tasting potion Snape had left on his desk beforehand!

Suddenly a very familiar black dog burst out of the trees and sprinted past him, an equally familiar rat dangling precariously from its jaws.

He tried to call out, but his voice became a howl. He was turning into a wolf, and nothing was going to stop it.

Except maybe the several hundred Monster Books of Monsters currently rushing towards him, hot on the heels of Sirius.

The situation was so unusual, his not-fully-transformed mind could not comprehend it, and he completely failed to recognise the danger until it was far too late and the wave of books crashed over him.

The last thing he head, or thought he heard, since he was never fully convinced afterwards that it had really happened, was a high pitched voice.

"Opps, sorry Mr Doggy-man," called an elf as it rush passed, trying to catch up to their stampeding horde of books.

#

Sirius ran like he had never run before, fear, anxiety and excitement driving his legs harder than should have been possible over the broken ground and through the tangled forest. He ducked under low hanging branches and leapt over fallen trees in a display of amazing athletic prowess.

The first spider webs didn't even register, but as they grew in number and thickness, he realised he was in big trouble.

He couldn't turn back, but going deeper into the lair of the Acromantulas was even more sure suicide, especially since he knew the spiders longed for the succulent taste of Dog.

Of course, Sirius believed most creatures practically lusted for a bite of his tender flesh, mainly due to a series of rather mean jokes played on him by his Hogwarts dorm mates involving the giant squid, but in this case he was actually right.

Swerving suddenly, he headed for the least 'webbed' part of the forest he could see. The fact an area relatively cleared of webs existed didn't really bother him, until he found out why.

There was a car.

It was blue.

He had seen it before.

It had been rather unsuccessfully trying to fly.

Now it was apparently taking out its frustrations on the giant spiders who called this part of the forest home. Dead, crushed spider bodies littered the floor, some almost as big as the car itself. In response, the giant spiders were swarming in to defend their home, and hopefully add some iron to their diet.

Without hesitation, Sirius leapt through one of the smashed windows, transforming back into a human as he went. He spat the rat onto the floor of the car and calmly asked, "Excuse me. Would you mind giving me a lift back to the castle please? I'm in a bit of a hurry."

The car was so startled that it paused in its rampage, just in time to see a wave of monsterous books flowing into the spider's huge nest.

"Er, sooner rather than later," suggested Sirius.

It suddenly seemed like a pretty good idea, so that's what it did, leaving behind mighty battle that would have become legend, if anybody who could tell the tale had seen it.

#

"Right then, Harry," said the scruffy looking stranger. "I'm off then – yes I smell too, don't say it. That joke got old a couple of months ago! Anyway, I'm off to a nice island in the sun somewhere, hopefully one with a ton of mostly naked birds. I'd take you in for the hols but this has all been a bit stressful and I need some time off alone to do adult stuff, okay? So I'll write, and see you soon I guess."

"Yeah okay," agreed Harry. "See you then."

The scruffy man went to turn away, but hesitated before suddenly sweeping Harry into a hug.

"Take care, you rapscallion," he said, letting Harry go and transforming into a huge black dog that loped off into the night.

"Er, who was that?" asked Ernie as he and Harry watched an image of the wizarding world's spectre of death run towards the trees.

"No idea," said Harry without missing a beat.

The dog paused just before the shadows of the Forbidden forest for one last look back at Harry, then climbed into a battered looking blue car that seemed to just appear out of nowhere.

"Seemed friendly enough though," added Harry, waving, since it seemed like the polite thing to do.

#

"So Harry, how was your year off then?" asked Zachariah as they rode the carriages away from the castle.

"To tell the truth, it was a bit boring," said Harry.

"Boring?" asked Hermione incredulously. "You were stalked for most of the year by an insane murderer-"

"Yeah but that happens every year," interjected Harry.

"-nearly got your soul sucked out by Dementors, twice-"

"I didn't even really notice the first time," said Harry, "and was falling too fast for any of them to have a proper go the other time."

"Helped establish the wizarding world's first major full motion production and distribution company-"

"Hey, that more Smiley's doing than mine! Reckon our grades are going to be pretty good this year though – I've never seen so many people wanting to study so often before. Dean did four lectures in one night!"

"-Introduced the House elves to the art of war so they could defeat a plague of rogue magical books that infested the lower levels of the castle for the better part of the year-"

"Binns taught them that, not me."

"You redesigned the Muggle Studies course and wrote the new text book for it-" she continued.

"More plagiarised than wrote, and the course is mostly just watching a bunch of movies now, movies you helped choose, thank Merlin. I thought I was going to have trouble getting them to change, but apparently it's been on somebody's to-do list for a century or so and they were happy just to wave the changes through without any sort of proper review. I should have added the Sun newspaper or some other rag – that would have been funny."

"You gave the Divination Professor a seizure."

"Beardy said she really was making a prophecy, so her condition had nothing to do with my unfortunate bout of cursed-ring-induced-Torrete's-syndrome. It was just bad timing really. Hey, did you know he has this flamboyant chicken in his office that cooks itself? Self-cooking food, genius."

"You mastered a highly advanced bit of magic that many adult wizards are incapable of performing-"

"I'm pretty sure Mooney was drunk when he decided that the Patronus spell was easier to teach me than the Riddikulus spell. Mind you, why nobody ever thought about casting a cheering charm on themselves first has got me buggered – easiest thing in the world to have a happy thought when you are tripping on that minor spell."

"And finally, you caused that very same defence professor to have a nervous breakdown and leave just days before the year was out!"

"Oh come on – it's not my fault he thinks bein thought of as a cross dresser was a bigger embarrassment than being outed as a werewolf," said Harry. "And I didn't even do that really, it was more your fault for telling everyone about my mistake."

Hermione huffed as Susan and Hannah both giggled, quite enjoying watching the bright but often self-righteous Gryffindor struggle with Harry's attitude.

"At any rate," said Harry. "I feel like I had to work pretty hard this year- don't snort, Hermione, it's not very dignified and doesn't suit you at all. As I was saying, I feel like I put in quite an effort this year and have nothing to show for it, so next year I am going to do better!"

"Merlin protect me, but are you saying you are actually going to try to get into trouble next year?" asked Zachariah.

"Not at all, my good man," said Harry, leaning back and spreading out in what everybody recognised he called 'sleeping position number eight'. "I am most definitely not going to put in more effort than I did this year, but I am going to get more out of it!"

Hermione could only stare incredulously.

Finite


End file.
